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PREFATORY NOTE. 

SEVENTY years ago Lord Byron, 
speaking of Johnson's " Lives 
of the Poets," which he de- 
scribed as " the finest critical 
work extant," said, "The opinion of 
that truly great man, whom it is the 
present fashion to decry, will ever be 
received by me with that deference 
which time will restore to him from 
all." If there was a temporary eclipse 
of the fame and popularity of Johnson 
it has long since passed away. In 



tyvefatGvtj &ote< 



every land where the English tongue 
is spoken, his name is mentioned with 
respect and honour. The centenary 
of his death, in 1784, being celebrated 
in his native city of Lichfield, this little 
book is offered as a tribute to the me- 
mory of one who, as a man even more 
than as an author, was recognized as 
the chief of the republic of letters in 
the eighteenth century. May the sha- 
dow of his great name never grow less, 
nor the influence of his noble character 
ever be diminished ! 

James Macau lay, M.A., M.D. 
Editor of the " Leisure Hour.'* 



'vr^Nr- a tin: • ;.rw» 




CONTENTS. 

r 



PAGE 

PREFATORY NOTE .... 3 

DR. JOHNSON 9 

TABLE TALK. 

LONDON 71 

SCOTLAND AND SCOTCHMEN . . 75 

JOHNSON AND WILKES . . 80 

LUXURY HAS BENEFITS ... 83 
GRATIFICATION AT SEEING ONE'S 

WORKS 84 

GOLDSMITH'S WISH FOR NEW MEMBERS 

AT THE CLUB .... 84 

DR. YOUNG OF THE NIGHT THOUGHTS 85 

WORKS OF FICTION .... 86 
RICHARD BAXTER ... .86 



Contend* 



a medical fop 

fine coats .... 

classical quotations . 

places for worship . 

hume's argument against mira 

CLES 

Johnson's opinion of hume 
bolingbroke .... 
the heads on temple bar . 
drinking and intemperance . 
begone, dull care ! 
pleasure or happiness . 
temperance and abstinence 
law as a profession 
conversation 
edmund burke .... 

JUNIUS 

OCEAN 

DR. PARR .... 

OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH . 
LIFE OF A CLERGYMAN . 

PREACHING 

A WOMAN PREACHING 

DAVID GARRICK .... 

LORD CHATHAM 

JOHN WESLEY .... 

BOS WELL AND JOHN WESLEY . 

GHOSTS 

THE COCK LANE GHOST . 

APPARITIONS POSSIBLE 

FANCY AND FACT AS TO GHOSTS 

RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 

LIFE AT AN INN 

THE " THREE CROWNS " AT LICHFIELD 

PRAISE NOT ALWAYS SERVICEABLE 

DRESS AS INCREASING RESPECT . 



Content*. 



johnson's disregard of dress 

johnson's company manners . 

gallantry to ladies . 

mrs. williams . . . . . 

m;rs. tiirale . 

second marriages . ... 

mrs. johnson . 

signor piozzi . . 

the game of draughts 

TEA 

TO BE CONTINUED .... 
MRS. MACAULAY, THE REPUBLICAN 

HISTORIAN 
PLAYERS ... 

OSSIAN ..... 
STUDY IN EARLY LIFE 
JOHNSON'S ROUGHNESS OF SPEECH, . 
INFLUENCE OF TRADE ON CHARACTER 

SEA LIFE 

A HATTER IN THE BOROUGH 
DR. GOLDSMITH 
TALKATIVE LADIES 
OSBORNE THE BOOKSELLER 

IRELAND 

PERSONAL REMARKS AND QUESTIONS 
FRENCHMEN .... 

JOHNSON AS AN ATHLETE 
FOOTE ....... 

JOHNSON'S AGILITY .... 

TOLERATION .... 

LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE AND LIBERTY 

OF TEACHING .... 
VALUING THRALE'S BREWERY 
RIGHT USE OF MONEY 
ACTION IN ORATORY . 
THE MEDITERRANEAN 



(&0ntent&. 



PAGE 

BOOKS OF TRAVEL .... 145 

DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT . I46 

GENIUS I46 

NOT UNDERSTANDING AN ARGUMENT I47 

FOOTE AND GARRICK .... I47 

GARRICK'S ALLEGED PARSIMONY . I47 

MARRYING AN HEIRESS . . . I48 

CHARITABLE SPIRIT GROWS WITH 

AGE 149 

WOMEN'S CLAIMS OF RIGHTS . . 150 

ECCENTRIC LOVE OF DISTINCTION . I50 

AN UNLETTERED TALKER . . 151 

ABUSIVE CRITICISMS . . . . 151 

EARLY TRAINING IN THRIFT . . 151 

A CONSOLATION FOR A JEALOUS AUTHOR 1 52 

DISLIKE OF FLATTERY . . . 1 52 

REBUKE TO GARRULITY . . .153 

BIOGRAPHY 154 

DULNESS AND PLAINNESS . . .154 

CONVENTS 155 

FRIENDS OF EARLY AND LATER LIFE . 155 




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DOCTOR JOHNSON. 

r 

IF the fame of Dr. Johnson de- 
pended on his writings alone, few 
wreaths would now be laid on 
his tomb. His name is indeed 
known, wherever the English language 
is spoken, as the author of the Dic- 
tionary; but his other works, whether 
in prose or verse, have not many 
readers in our days. They were popu- 
lar once, but they are little in accord 
with modern taste ; while the excel- 
lence of their matter does not make up 
i* 



UJuctjcrtr gtofyn^on. 



in public estimation for the ponderosity 
of their style. Nevertheless,, he is better 
known and more highly honoured than 
any other author of the last century, 
and no name stands out more con- 
spicuously in its literary annals. 

This fulness and freshness of fame, 
after he has been a hundred years in 
his grave, he owes in great measure to 
BoswelPs biography, " which has done 
more for Johnson," as Lord Macaulay 
says, " than the best of his own books 
could do." Boswell shows us the man, 
and it is as a man rather than as an 
author that he best deserves to be 
remembered. This immortal book 
will perpetuate his renown, and in it 
the sage appears to us still in stately 
majesty, as he did when he was 
supreme and almost without a rival in 
the literary circles of his time. This 
position he held as much by his moral 
excellence as by his intellectual power, 
and by his conversation more than by 
writings — a position unique in the his- 



gifje anb %$&vk#. 



tory of modern times. Not Dryden, 
not Addison had such a throne, and we 
must go back to classic instances, such 
as Socrates in Athens, or Cato in Rome, 
to find eminence and influence parallel 
to that of Johnson in London when 
George the Third was king. 

The extraordinary homage paid to 
Johnson, at least in his latter years, by 
people of every grade and calling in 
life, appears to us now scarcely cred- 
ible, yet the following facts will convince 
any one that there is no exaggeration 
as to the deference shown to him. 

The Doctor had composed a Latin 
epitaph for the monument in West- 
minster Abbey to Oliver Goldsmith. 
Some of his friends thought that it 
would be better to have the epitaph 
in English, so that the memory of so 
eminent an English writer might be per- 
petuated in that language to which his 
works are likely to be so lasting an 
ornament. The subject came up at a 
dinner at Sir Joshua Reynolds', and all 



i2 $i0ct&v golynzott. 

agreed that a respectful request should 
be made to that effect. But the ques- 
tion arose as to who was to make the 
proposal — either to write the epitaph 
in English, or at least so to alter the 
Latin as to bring out some of the more 
popular points of Goldsmith's character 
and works. No one seemed willing to 
sign a written petition, which the Bishop 
of Killaloe drew up, replete with wit 
and humour, but which it was feared 
the Doctor might think treated the sub- 
ject with too much levity. The sug- 
gestion was made that they might adopt 
a " round robin," as sailors call it, 
which they use when making a com- 
plaint, without wishing it to be seen 
who puts his name first or last on the 
paper. The proposition was instantly 
assented to, and Mr. Burke drew up the 
well-known Address, in the form in 
which it appears in Boswell's Life, be- 
gining, "We, the circumscribers," &c. 
Sir Joshua consented to carry it to Dr. 
Johnson, who received the document 



with great good humour, and desired 
Sir Joshua to tell the gentlemen " that 
he would alter the epitaph in any manner 
they pleased, as to the sense of it ; but 
he would not consent to disgrace the 
walls of Westminster Abbey with an 
English inscription." Fancy a number 
of distinguished men, among whom 
were Edmund Burke and Sir Joshua 
Reynolds, George Colman and Richard 
Brinsley Sheridan, Sir William Forbes 
and Dean Barnard, James Warton 
and Edward Gibbon, hesitating to 
approach Johnson, except in a round 
robin, like sailors to their captain, or 
boys to their master ! 

In a letter to Boswell, a few years 
later, Bennett Langton describes a scene 
he had witnessed one evening at Mr. 
Vesey's house. "The company con- 
sisted chiefly of ladies, among whom 
were the Duchess Dowager of Portland , 
the Duchess of Beaufort, and her 
mother Mrs. Boscawen, Lady Lucan, 
Lady Clermont, and others of note, 



i4 Qoctov &&tyn&0tt< 



both for their station and under- 
standings. Among the gentlemen were 
Lord Althorp, Lord Macartney, Sir 
Joshua Reynolds, Lord Lucan, Mr 
Wraxall, Dr. Warren, Mr. Pepys, the 
Master in Chancery, and Dr. Barnard, 
Provost of Eton. As soon as Dr. 
Johnson was come in and had taken a 
chair, the company began to collect 
round him till they became not less 
than four or five deep : those behind 
standing, and listening over the heads of 
those that were sitting near him. The 
conversation for some time was chiefly 
between Dr. Johnson and the Provost 
of Eton, while the others contributed 
occasionally their remarks." 

This scene is rather a formal one, 
and looks like an instance of the skilful 
"lionizing" of a Mrs. Leo Hunter of 
that day, but it certainly shows the high 
estimation in which the Doctor was 
held in the best society. 

With the exception of two or three 
men, like Foote or Wolcot, who had 



gifle cmfcr pr^rk«. 



motives for their scurrility, there was 
hardly a man of public note who did not 
respect Johnson. Those who did not 
appreciate his moral greatness regarded 
him with wholesome fear. Even Wilkes, 
whom everybody abused, and who was 
ready to abuse everybody, showed 
marked respect for him. The first time 
they met at dinner it was feared that 
the strong antagonism of their political 
opinions might lead to unpleasant con- 
test ; but Wilkes met him with studied 
and courteous deference, and Johnson 
said afterwards that " Jack talked well ; 
he is a scholar ; and has the manners 
of a gentleman." 

An amusing instance of the Doctor's 
popularity is reported from Northamp- 
tonshire, where a man who represented 
himself as his brother was well received 
for about two years by the country 
gentlemen. At length he became so 
troublesome and impudent that sus- 
picions arose, and Allen the printer, a 
Northamptonshire man, was written to. 



1 6 QGctov gtoJjn*tftt* 

Allen went to Johnson, and on being 
assured that he had no brother living, 
wrote to the country, and the impostor 
soon disappeared. In telling this story 
Johnson said, " It pleased me to hear 
that so much was got by using my name. 
It is not every name can carry double; 
do both for a man's self and his 
brother ! I should be glad to see the 
fellow. However, I could have done 
nothing against him. A man can have 
no redress for his name being used, or 
ridiculous stories being told of him in 
the newspapers, except he can show 
that he has suffered damage." 

The fame of Dr. Johnson's conver- 
sational powers was well known to the 
king, George III. His majesty signi- 
fied his desire to be told when he was 
next at the queen's library, where John- 
son went occasionally to assist his 
friend Dr. Barnard, the librarian, in 
arranging the books. The interview 
was a most satisfactory one, the king 
entering into conversation on a great 




"I FOUND HIS MAJESTY WISHED I SHOULD TALK, 
AND I MADE IT MY BUSINESS TO TALK,"— Page 17. 



variety of topics, and listening to John- 
son in the most gracious manner. " I 
found his majesty wished I should talk," 
he said afterwards, "and I made it 
my business to talk." . Bos well has 
gathered much of the conversation, 
and refers to this as " one of the most 
remarkable incidents of Johnson's life." 
His majesty asked if he was then 
writing anything. He answered, he 
was not, for he had pretty well told 
the world what he knew, and must now 
read to acquire more knowledge. The 
king then said, " I do not think that 
you borrow much from anybody," as 
if urging him to give more of his own 
original thoughts to the world. John- 
son said he thought he had already 
done his part as a writer. "I should 
have thought so, too," said the king, 
" if you had not written so well." 
Johnson told Boswell that "no man 
could have paid a handsomer compli- 
ment, and it was fit for a king to pay. 
It was decisive." When asked by 



t8 %}0ct0v g-olyn&on* 

another friend, at Sir Joshua Reynolds', 
whether he made any reply to this 
high compliment, he answered, " No, 
sir. When the king had said it, it was 
to be so. It was not for me to bandy 
civilities with my sovereign." 

After the king withdrew, Johnson 
showed himself highly pleased with his 
majesty's conversation and gracious 
behaviour. He said to Dr. Barnard, 
" Sir, they may talk of the king as they 
will ; but he is the finest gentleman I 
have ever seen." And he afterwards 
observed to Mr. Langton, " Sir, his 
manners are those of as fine a gentle- 
man as we may suppose Lewis the 
Fourteenth or Charles the Second." 
Johnson spoke to the king with pro- 
found respect, but in his usual manly,, 
independent manner. When Gold- 
smith heard of it he said to Johnson,. 
" Well, you acquitted yourself in this 
conversation better than I should have 
done; for I should have bowed and 
stammered through the whole of it ! n 



gifb mtfc iptortaf* 19 

While Johnson could suit his con- 
versation to all minds, from king to 
servant, or from philosopher to peasant, 
his freest utterances were among his 
congenial and appreciative companions 
at the club. In these social gatherings 
he found his chief recreation and plea- 
sure. To relieve the monotony of his 
labour when preparing the Dictionary, 
he joined some friends in establishing 
a club, which met in the evening for 
literary conversation and discussion. 
They met at the King's Head, in Ivy 
Lane, Paternoster Row. The members 
associated with him in this little society 
included Dr. Bathurst, Dr. Hawkes- 
worth, Sir John Hawkins, and others 
of various callings and professions. 
This was the precursor of the more 
famous " Literary Club," which in later 
years was founded by Dr. Johnson and 
Sir Joshua Reynolds, and which flou- 
rishes to our own day, although under 
conditions widely different from the 
homelier usages of older times. The 



g)xxct<w gj£<*l)n#j<m* 



list of members in these early years 
included many illustrious names, Burke, 
Goldsmith, Langton, Bishop Percy 
Windham, Fox, Dr. Burney, Sir Wil 
liam Jones, Edward Malone, Gibbon 
Sir Joseph Banks, Sir Robert Chambers 
Mr. Dunning, first Lord Ashburton 
Lord Ossory, and many others distin 
guished in public life. The members 
in later times have been not less illus- 
trious, as it has been an object of 
ambition to be enrolled in a society so 
famed in history. 

Dr. Johnson was eminently " a club- 
able man," delighting in such gather- 
ings, where intellectual recreation, "the 
feast of reason and the flow of soul" 
formed the chief attraction. Personally 
he was extremely temperate ; in fact, 
through most of his life he was a total 
abstainer from alcoholic drink ; a habit 
acquired, he tells us, partly from regard 
to health, and partly on moral grounds, 
as he found it easier and safer to abstain 
entirely from wine than to be a moder- 



gifc aixb %$0vk&* 21 

ate drinker. He took no vow, but he 
set a good example at a time when 
excessive drinking was thought no 
moral or social disgrace. There seems 
to have been no smoking at the club, 
the use of tobacco at this time having 
gone much out of fashion, and not 
becoming again prevalent till a later 
period. 

We are not dependent on Bos well 
alone, who was a regular attendant 
when in London, for the record of 
Johnson's table talk at the club. Dr. 
Percy, Sir John Hawkins, Reynolds, 
Malone, and other members have left 
valuable recollections of what was done 
and said at the meetings. From these 
various sources we can form a good 
idea of the conversational powers of 
Johnson, on which his fame so largely 
rests. Some specimens of his table 
talk form the substance of the present 
centenary memorial, but to those of a 
new generation who are not familiar 
with Johnson's history a brief reference 
to his life and works may be acceptable. 






TO the events of his early years 
it is not necessary to devote 
much space. Born at Lich- 
field, September 18, 1709; he 
received his first education at Lichfield 
school, and at the grammar-school of 
Stonebridge, in Worcestershire. In 
1728 he entered as a fellow-commoner 
at Pembroke College, Oxford ; but his 
university career was cut short in less 
than three years, by the failure of his 
father, Michael Johnson, the Lichfield 



bookseller. After an unsuccessful at- 
tempt to establish a school, and having 
assisted Mr. Warren, a bookseller in 
Birmingham, where his schoolfellow 
Mr. Hector had settled as a surgeon, 
Johnson resolved to devote himself to 
literature as his calling. He offered 
his services to Mr. Cave, who had 
started the " Gentleman's Magazine " 
a few years before, and with whom he 
had some correspondence while at 
Birmingham. 

His marriage with Mrs. Porter 
delayed a purpose he had formed to 
migrate to London, and he made a 
second attempt to support himself as a 
schoolmaster. The school did not 
succeed, for lack of pupils, only three 
being attracted by his advertisements, 
two of them being David Garrick and 
his brother George, their father Captain 
Garrick residing in Lichfield. 

The resolution to seek his fortune in 
London was then firmly formed. His 
pupil, David Garrick, determined to 



24 gltfjctar $-<r\)tt&0n. 

accompany him, professedly to study 
law, but already with ambition to enter 
on a dramatic career. The two adven- 
turers started for London in 1737. In 
after life, when both had risen to emi- 
nence, they used playfully to recall the 
time of early struggle, not omitting the 
day when they left Lichfield, as they 
afterwards used to say, "with a few 
pence in their pockets." Garrick had 
a career of steady prosperity, and soon 
became rich as well as famous. John- 
son's poverty continued for many years, 
and the record of his toils and hard- 
ships as a man of letters is altogether a 
sad and painful story. He had experi- 
ence to the utmost of the drudgery of 
writing for bread. For the booksellers 
he wrote reviews, prefaces, biographies, 
essays, and miscellaneous pieces, in 
prose and verse, for very small remu- 
neration. For a time he assisted 
Guthrie, Cave's principal literary hack, 
in preparing the parliamentary debates 
for the " Gentleman's Magazine," and 



gifj? anh ^cvh*. 25 

on Guthne obtaining a pension for his 
services to the Government, Johnson 
succeeded him as principal reporter of 
the proceedings in the " Senate of 
Lilliput," for actual reports of parlia- 
ment were then sternly forbidden. But 
even when fully employed by Cave he 
had continual struggle with poverty. 
In one of his letters we find him ask- 
ing for the advance of a guinea. The 
story is well known of a visitor at 
Cave's house seeing a plate handed to 
some one behind a screen, where John- 
son sat, too shabbily clothed to present 
himself Yet at this very time of 
hardest penury, he was ever working 
for others more than for himself. He 
had to support his wife and his aged 
mother at Lichfield. For brethren of 
the pen, poorer than himself, he was 
constantly supplying matter, or sharing 
with them his own scanty earnings. It 
was said by one of his friends that " he 
was always giving or interceding for 
charitable help to others, when he 
2 



26 glojctav goljnstftt* 



seemed a more proper object, of it 
himself.' Dear old Great-Heart ! we 
cannot read even now without a thrill 
of pleasure the record of his getting a 
Government pension of .£300 a year. 
This put him beyond the fear of want, 
and enabled him to continue his gene- 
rous assistance to others. 

Never was a literary pension more 
worthily bestowed. In those times 
favours were rarely granted except for 
political services. Johnson had abused 
pensioners in his Dictionary, and he 
feared lest the acceptance of one might 
imply loss of independence. Lord 
Bute behaved very handsomely in the 
matter, notwithstanding Johnson's dis- 
like both of pensioners and Scotchmen. 
" Pray, my Lord, what am I expected to 
do for this pension ? " Johnson asked 
the minister. " It is not given you," 
was the reply, "for anything you are 
to do, but for what you have done." 
He repeated these words twice over, 
that he might be sure Johnson heard 



Qifc anb Q$ovk&. 27 



them, and thus set his mind perfectly 
at ease. 

Although Johnson was now alone in 
life, having lost his wife, and having no 
relatives dependent on him, his home 
was more than ever kept up, with his 
enlarged means, less for himself than 
for others. It was filled with as strange 
inmates as were ever brought together 
under one roof, most of them wholly 
supported by the master's generous 
charity. If he had been lord of a 
mansion or a palace, most of it would 
have been used as an asylum or hos- 
pital, a refuge for the afflicted and 
sorrowful, the poor and the outcast. 
He more than once said, when asked 
how he could assist such and such a 
one, that he liked to help those whom 
he knew nobody else would help. 
With some of the inmates of his home 
in Bolt Court he could enjoy a cer- 
tain amount of companionship. Mrs. 
Williams, the aged and blind widow of 
a Welsh clergyman, was a woman of 



28 Qotzt&v Q&i)x\&&xx< 



some education and culture, and was 
able to talk to his visitors. Another 
widow, Mrs. Desmoulins, with her 
daughter Miss Carmichael, were known 
from early Lichfield days. The com- 
plaints and quarrels of these female 
pensioners often sorely tried the good 
Doctor's patience, and in his letters he 
makes doleful allusion to them. Then 
there was Mr. Levett, an irregular 
medical practitioner, himself poorer 
than most of his patients, but with 
kindness of heart and varied know- 
ledge in subjects about which Johnson 
liked to talk. Levett made a wretched 
and foolish marriage, but this did not 
quench his patron's regard or pity ; and 
when separated from his Drury Lane 
partner he was taken back to Bolt 
Court, and remained there till his death 
at the age of seventy. The lines 
written on this occasion show Johnson's 
feeling towards "the poor man's doc- 
tor." We quote only two of the 
stanzas : 



gifi? anb Qiiovk*. 29 

Well tried through many a varying year, 
See Levett to the grave descend j 

Officious, innocent, sincere, 

Of every friendless name the friend. 

In misery's darkest cavern known, 

His useful care was ever nigh, 
Where hopeless anguish pour'd his groan, 

And lonely want retired to die. 

Mr. G. A. Sala, who has much of 
the Johnsonian largeness of heart and 
diversity of knowledge, says that "when 
death relieved him of Levett, the same 
pen which wrote the noble prologue 
recited by Garrick on the opening of 
Drury Lane Theatre in 1747, embalmed 
the memory of the humble medical 
practitioner in perhaps the most beauti- 
ful and touching obituary lines that 
ever came from an English pen." 

The black servant, Frank Barber, 
was a conspicuous member of the 
household. He had been brought, 
when a lad, from Jamaica, by Colonel 
Bathurst, father of Johnson's friend Dr. 
Bathurst. He was treated with great 
kindness, and on the whole served his 



30 gJtfjctov giirtptjum* 

master with fidelity and care. He 
usually accompanied the Doctor to 
church, and the pew where they sat in 
St. Clement Danes, in the Strand, is 
marked by a brass plate with an in- 
scription. 

These eccentric pleasures of chanty 
were not indulged in to the neglect of 
the claims of his own kindred, or the 
fulfilment of all natural duties. His 
affection for Mrs. Johnson, though he 
married her when nearly double his 
own age, remained undiminished 
through her life, and his letters and 
diaries contain frequent allusions to his 
" poor dear Tetty." Her broken health 
required from him much expense as 
well as attention in her later years, for 
he had to take lodgings for her at 
Hampstead and other places out of 
London. For her memory he cherished 
the most tender remembrance, and 
only a few months before his own 
death he honoured her memory by 
an affectionate epitaph, which was in- 



scribed on her tombstone at Bromley, 
in Kent, where she was buried. 

Nor was his fond attention less 
marked towards his aged mother at 
Lichfield, and to her daughter Lucy 
Porter, and other friends of his early 
life. Although rarely able to go to see 
his mother, he contributed liberally to 
her support and comfort. When at 
last she died, at the age of ninety, in 
January, 1759, it was to obtain money 
for defraying the expenses of her 
funeral, and for paying some debts left 
by her, that he wrote the story of 
"Rasselas." One of the latest letters 
which he wrote to her was in these 
words : " Dear honoured mother, your 
weakness afflicts me beyond what I am 
willing to communicate to you. I do 
not think you unfit to face death, but I 
know not how to bear the thought of 
losing you. I often pray for you ; do 
you pray for me. I am, dear, dear 
mother, your dutiful son, Samuel John- 
son." 



32 Qoct0v g)LjcrJ}n#xm* 

Considering the warmth of his filial 
and conjugal affection, and in pages 
written at such a time, we feel the force 
of the touching words put into the 
mouth of the sage in Rasselas, when 
he says, " I have neither mother to be 
delighted with the reputation of her 
son, nor wife to partake the honours of 
her husband." 






f\J rj r>J r>J oj oj «nJ r\J <^ <vj rvj r\J r>4 r\J «^ r^ <^ nJt oj r\A <\* 







ALTHOUGH the works of Dr. 
Johnson are now little read, 
and their former reputation 
may have been somewhat ex- 
aggerated, we must regret the compara- 
tive neglect to which they have been 
consigned. They are the productions 
of a powerful and generous mind, and 
they have excellences, both of thought 
and expression, in which the lighter 
literature of our time is generally de- 
ficient. With all their faults of style, 



34 Qactcv gLoljn&on. 

the prose writings have a force and 
felicity of diction, rising often to noblest 
eloquence. And as to his poems, the 
words of one well qualified to judge, 
William Cowper, describe them now as 
when written in his epitaph — 

Whose verse may claim, grave, masculine, and 

strong, 
Superior praise to the mere poet's song. 

The first literary work undertaken by 
him by choice not from necessity, was 
his poem " London," in imitation of the 
Third Satire of Juvenal. It was pub- 
lished anonymously. The remarkable 
ability of this poem was at once and uni- 
versally recognized. The veteran poet 
and satirist, Pope, was delighted, and 
he showed nothing of the meanness of 
jealousy with which he has sometimes 
been charged. Failing to ascertain the 
name of the new writer, he said that 
whoever he was he must soon be 
deterr'e ; he could not long remain con- 
cealed. Within a week a second edi- 
tion was called for. The poem breathes 



the spirit of manly independence, with 
patriotic affection for his native land, 
in spite of the abounding faults and 
follies which he satirized. There were 
touches, too, of personal feeling, as in 
the lines descriptive of his own posi- 
tion and aspirations — 

This mournful truth is everywhere confessed, 
Slow rises worth, by poverty oppressed ! 

" London " appeared in May, 1738. 
On this, and on his second poem of 
the same kind, " The Vanity of Human 
Wishes," an imitation of the Tenth 
Satire of Juvenal, his place among the 
classic poets of England mainly depends. 
In the tragedy of " Irene " are some 
noble sentiments and passages of 
stately blank verse ; but neither this nor 
any of his minor poems have retained 
popularity. No change of public taste, 
however, can alter the verdict as to 
" The Vanity of Human Wishes." " It 
is a grand poem," said Byron, "and so 
true ! true as the Tenth of Juvenal 
himself." Some of the instances of 



36 Q&ct0v gjtoljn#xm« 

"the mirage of life," such as that of 
the warrior, Charles XII. of Sweden, are 
as highly finished pictures as poet ever 
drew. Very noble, too, is the conclu- 
sion of the poem, which shows where 
human wishes can alone find a satisfy- 
ing portion, and true happiness be 
found — 

Implore His aid, in His decisions rest, 
Secure whate'er He gives, He gives the best. 
Yet when the sense of sacred presence fires, 
And strong devotion to the sky aspires. 
Pour forth thy fervours for a healthful mind, 
Obedient passions, and a will resigned ; 
For love, which scarce collective man can fill ; 
For patience, sovereign o'er transmuted will ; 
For faith which, panting for a happier seat, 
Counts death kind nature's signal for retreat ; 
These goods for man the laws of Heaven 

ordain, 
These goods He grants, who grants the power 

to gain ; 
With these celestial wisdom calms the mind, 
And makes the happiness she does not find. 

The best of the prose works are 
11 The Lives of the Poets," the " Preface 
to Shakespeare," the " Journey to the 
Hebrides," and " Rasselas, Prince of 
Abyssinia." In all his other writings, 



notably in the "Rambler," are pieces 
of remarkable power or elegance, and 
some of the now forgotten essays and 
articles on miscellaneous subjects are 
worthy of permanent place in any col- 
lection of the "Beauties of English 
Literature." Few, however, find time 
for the perusal of older authorship 
amidst the multitude of modern works 
flowing incessantly from the press. 
The student and scholar alone take the 
trouble to read what Dr. Johnson 
wrote, and all who do will be amply 
rewarded for their pains. To a genera- 
tion which knows not Dr. Johnson, a few 
passages may serve to show the spirit 
and the style of his prose works. 

Let us begin with some which are 
familiar, because often quoted or re- 
ferred to, though not more striking or 
characteristic than others that remain 
unnoted. Who knows not the reflec- 
tions on landing at Iona? of which 
Boswell says, " Had our tour produced 
nothing else but this sublime passage, 



38 factor g0\$n#0tt. 

the world must have acknowledged that 
it was not made in vain." Sir Joseph 
Banks, the President of the Royal 
Society, was so much struck on reading 
it, that he clasped his hands together, 
and remained for some time in an atti- 
tude of silent admiration. Thousands 
have read the words with sympathetic 
emotion amidst the scenes described. 

"We were now treading that illus- 
trious island which was once the lumi- 
nary of the Caledonian regions, whence 
savage clans and roving barbarians de- 
rived the benefits of knowledge and 
the blessings of religion. To abstract 
the mind from all local emotion would 
be impossible if it were endeavoured, 
and would be foolish if it were possible. 
Whatever withdraws us from the power 
of our senses, whatever makes the past, 
the distant, or the future predominate 
over the present, advances us in the 
dignity of thinking beings. Far from 
me and my friends be such frigid 
philosophy as may conduct us indiner- 



ent and unmoved over any ground 
which has been dignified by wisdom, 
bravery, or virtue. The man is little to 
be envied whose patriotism would not 
gain force on the plains of Marathon, 
or whose piety would not grow warmer 
among the ruins of Iona." 

Scarcely less striking in thought and 
rhythmic in language is the close of his 
Preface to Shakespeare. For a critical 
edition of the plays he lacked the 
necessary special learning and know- 
ledge, but not one of all the learned 
critics approaches Johnson in his gen- 
eral estimate and description of the 
great dramatic poet. 

" Shakespeare is, above all writers — 
at least, above all modern writers — the 
poet of nature ; the poet that holds up 
to his readers a faithful mirror of man- 
ners and of life. His characters are not 
modified by the customs of particular 
places, unpractised by the rest of the 
world; by the peculiarities of studies or 
professions which can operate but upon 



40 Qvctov gjLjcrJjnaun* 

small numbers ; or by the accidents of 
transient fashions or temporary opin- 
ions: they are the genuine progeny of 
common humanity, such as the world 
will always supply, and observation will 
always find. His persons act and speak 
by the influence of those general pas- 
sions and principles by which all minds 
are agitated, and the whole system of 
life is continued in motion. In the 
writings of other poets a character is too 
often an individual; in those of Shake- 
speare it is commonly a species. 

"It is from this wide extension of 
design that so much instruction is 
derived. It is this which fills the plays 
of Shakespeare with practical axioms 

and domestic wisdom As his 

personages act upon principles arising 
from genuine passion, very little modi- 
fied by particular forms, their pleasures 
and vexations are communicable to 
all times and to all places ; they are 
natural, and therefore durable. The 
adventitious peculiarities of personal 



habits are only superficial dyes, bright 
and pleasing for a little while, yet soon 
fading to a dim tint, without any 
remains of former lustre ; but the dis- 
criminations of true passion are the 
colours of nature; they pervade the 
whole mass, and can only perish with 
the body that exhibits them. The 
accidental compositions of heterogene- 
ous modes are dissolved by the chance 
which combined them; but the uniform 
simplicity of primitive qualities neither 
admits increase nor suffers decay. The 
sand heaped by one flood is scattered by 
another; but the rock always continues 
in its place. The stream of time, which 
is continually washing the dissoluble 
fabrics of other poets, passes without 
injury the adamant of Shakespeare." 

As illustrating the wise and practical 
tone of his moral sentiments, a good 
specimen may be found in his picture 
of the miseries of war. 

"It is wonderful with what coolness 
and indifference the greater part of 



42 *$0ctov gl&\$n#0%x. 

mankind see war commenced. Those 
that hear of it at a distance, or read of 
it in books, but have never presented 
its evils to their minds, consider it little 
more than a splendid game, a proclama- 
tion, an army, a battle, and a triumph. 
Some, indeed, must perish in the suc- 
cessful field, but they die upon the bed 
of honour, resign their lives amidst the 
joys of conquest, and, filled with Eng- 
land's glory, smile in death ! 

"The life of a modern soldier is ill 
represented by heroic fiction. War has 
means of destruction more terrible than 
the cannon or the sword. Of the 
thousands and ten thousands that 
perished in our late contests with 
France and Spain, a very small part 
ever felt the stroke of an enemy ; the 
rest languished in tents and ships, 
amidst damps and putrefaction; pale, 
torpid, spiritless, and helpless; gasping 
and groaning, unpitied among men, 
made obdurate by long continuance of 
hopeless misery; and were at last 



£\fc anh %$0vk#. 43 

whelmed in pits, or heaved into the 
ocean, without notice and without 
remembrance. By incommodious en- 
campments and unwholesome stations, 
where courage is useless and enterprise 
impracticable, fleets are silently dis- 
peopled, and armies sluggishly melted 
away. 

"Thus is a people gradually ex- 
hausted, for the most part with little 
effect. The wars of civilized nations 
make very few changes in the system 
of empire. The public perceives scarcely 
any alteration but an increase of debt ; 
and the few individuals who are bene- 
fited are not supposed to have the 
clearest right to their advantages. If 
he that shared the danger enjoyed 
the profit, and after bleeding in battle 
grew rich by victory, he might show 
his gains without envy. But at the 
conclusion of a ten years' war, how 
are we recompensed for the death of 
multitudes and the expense of millions, 
but by contemplating the sudden glories 



44 Q#ct0v Q0\jn#0n. 

of paymasters and agents, contractors 
and commissaries, whose equipages 
shine like meteors, and whose palaces 
rise like exhalations ! " 

The best and wisest statesmen of all 
times have ever been advocates of 
peace, and the most distinguished 
soldiers of our own country, such as 
the Duke of Wellington and Sir Charles 
Napier, have spoken and written as 
strongly about the evils and miseries 
of war. Would that the sentiments 
expressed by Dr. Johnson were laid to 
heart by the writers in the public press, 
who in our day influence as well express 
the voice of public opinion in this 
matter ! 

The famous letter to Lord Chester- 
field on the publication of the Diction- 
ary is too well known to be quoted 
here, and we give but the closing 
sentences of it: "The notice which 
you have been pleased to take of my 
labours, had it been early, had been 
kind j but it has been delayed till I am 



Stfe an** %$0vh#. 45 

indifferent, and cannot enjoy it ; till I 
am solitary, and cannot impart it ; till 
I am known, and do not want it. I 
hope it is no very cynical asperity not 
to confess obligations where no benefit 
has been received, or to be unwilling 
that the public should consider me as 
owing that to a patron which Provi- 
dence has enabled me to do for myself. 

" Having carried on my work thus far 
with so little obligation to any favourer 
of learning, I shall not be disappointed 
if I should conclude it, if less be pos- 
sible, with less ; for I have been long 
awakened from that dream of hope in 
which I once boasted myself with so 
much exultation." 

The Preface to the Dictionary is 
itself one of the noblest pieces that 
Johnson ever wrote, and some of its 
personal allusions are so touching that 
few can withhold the warmest sympathy 
and affection for the writer. Home 
Tooke said he never could read it 
without tears. 



46 gJtfjetov gjLx4jn£<ttt* 

"In hope of giving longevity to that 
which its own nature forbids to be 
immortal, I have devoted this book, 
the labour of years, to the honour of 
my country, that we may no longer 
yield the palm of philology, without a 
contest, to the nations of the continent. 
The chief glory of every people arises 
from its authors : whether I shall add 
anything by my own writings to the 
reputation of English literature must 
be left to time. Much of my life has 
been lost under the pressure of disease ; 
much has been trifled away ; and much 
has always been spent in provision for 
the day that was passing over me ; but 
I shall not think my employment use- 
less or ignoble, if, by my assistance, 
foreign nations and distant ages gain 
access to the propagators of knowledge, 
and understand the teachers of truth ; 
if my labours afford light to the re- 
positories of science, and add celebrity 
to Bacon, to Hooker, to Milton, and to 
Boyle. 



gtfe <tnfcr Uitorl«u 47 

" When I am animated by this wish, 
I look with pleasure on my book, how- 
ever defective, and deliver it to the 
world with the spirit of a man that has 
endeavoured well. That it will im- 
mediately become popular I have not 
promised to myself. . . . When it shall 
be found that much is omitted, let it 
not be forgotten that much likewise is 
performed; and though no book was ever 
spared out of tenderness to the author, 
and the world is little solicitous to know 
whence proceeded the faults of that 
which it condemns, yet it may gratify 
curiosity to inform it that the English 
Dictionary was written with little as- 
sistance from the learned, and without 
any patronage from the great ; not in 
the soft obscurities of retirement, or 
under the shelter of academic bowers, 
but amid inconvenience and distraction, 
in sickness and in sorrow. ... I may 
be surely contented without the praise 
of perfection, which, if I could obtain 
in this gloom of solitube, what would it 



48 Q#ct0V §L0ljn&0tt. 

avail me ? I have protracted my work 
till most of those whom I wished to 
please have sunk into the grave, and 
success or miscarriage are empty sounds. 
I therefore dismiss it with frigid tran- 
quillity, having little to fear or hope 
from censure or from praise." 



^tj-N life <j» Tjlr <tjr 

gggggggggg 



§B§g3&3§38 






^^^-^3K5»K-'<-3«:«e--S«:»e- ! 



w#I#iffiffi#ffi 



"^"XTTE must refrain from multi- 
\ \ / plying quotations, but there 
VY is scarcely a page of John- 
son's writings from which 
wise and eloquent sentences could not 
be taken. A collection of these would 
go far to replace the author on a higher 
position than he now holds in English 
prose literature, while a few of his 
striking passages would make the re- 
putation of some of the smaller writers 
by whom he is now contemned or 
3 



50 Q0rt0v %f0\jn&0n. 

neglected. His volumes teem with 
" thoughts that breathe and words that 
burn," and almost always we feel that 
we are in contact with a mind as good 
as it was great. Here are but a few 
specimens of his brief sentences. 

" Nothing can be great which is not 
right. Nothing which reason condemns 
can be suitable to the dignity of the 
human mind. To be driven by ex- 
ternal motives from the path which 
our own heart approves, to give way to 
anything but conviction, to suffer the 
opinion of others to rule our choice or 
overpower our resolves, is to submit 
tamely to the lowest and most igno- 
minious slavery, and to resign the right 
of directing our own lives." 

u Piety practised in solitude, like the 
flower that blooms in the desert, may 
give its fragrance to the winds of 
heaven, and delight those disembodied 
spirits that survey the works of God 
and the actions of men ; but it bestows 
no assistance upon earthly beings, and 



gtfje anh %$0vh#. 51 

however free from taints of impurity, 
yet wants the sacred splendour of 
beneficence. " 

" It is imagined by some that when- 
ever they aspire to please, they are 
required to be merry, and to show the 
gladness of their souls by flights of 
pleasantry and bursts of laughter. But 
though these men may for a time be 
heard with applause and admiration, 
they seldom delight us long. Gaiety 
is to good humour as animal perfumes 
to vegetable fragrance. The one over- 
powers weak spirits, and the other re- 
creates and revives them." 

"Those who, in consequence of 
superior capacities and attainments, 
disregard the common maxims of life, 
ought to be reminded that nothing will 
supply the want of prudence ; and that 
negligence and irregularity, long con- 
tinued, will make knowledge useless, 
wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible." 

"It is impossible to see the long 
scrolls in which every contract is in- 



52 Qvctev &0\)tx&0n. 

eluded, with all their appendages of 
seals and attestation, without wondering 
at the depravity of those beings who 
must be restrained from violation of 
promise by such formal and public evi- 
dences, and precluded from equivoca- 
tion and subterfuge by such punctilious 
minuteness. Among all the satires to 
which folly and wickedness have given 
occasion none is equally severe with a 
bond or settlement." 

" He that has lived without knowing 
to what height desire may be raised by 
vanity, with what rapture baubles are 
snatched out of the hands of rival 
collectors ; how the eagerness of one 
raises eagerness in another, and one 
worthless purchase makes another 
necessary, may, by passing a few hours 
at an auction, learn more than can be 
shown by many volumes of maxims or 
essays." 

" Rank may be conferred by princes, 
and wealth bequeathed by misers or 
robbers, but the honours of a lasting 



name and the veneration of distant ages 
only the sons of learning have the 
power of bestowing." 

" He that can only be useful on great 
occasions may die without exerting his 
abilities, and stand a helpless spectator 
of a thousand vexations which fret away 
happiness, and which nothing is required 
to remove but a little firmness of pur- 
pose, dexterity of conduct, and readiness 
of expedient/' 

" Whatever is done skilfully appears 
to be done with ease, and art when it is 
once observed vanishes from observa- 
tion. We are therefore more powerfully 
excited to emulation by those who 
have attained the highest degree of 
excellence, and whom we can therefore 
with least reason hope to equal." 

Such are a few brief extracts which 
we take in turning over, almost at 
random, some pages of Johnson. 
Treasures of thought or felicities of 
expression we find in whichever of his 
writings we examine. In the " Lives of 



54 gl^JCtov g!tol)tt*tftt* 

the Poets" his wisdom was ripest, and 
the variety of subjects incidentally in- 
troduced is surprising. Although his 
style diners so widely from that of 
Addison, whom he always commended 
to others as their model, his influence 
on the literature of his time was not 
unlike that of the great essayist of the 
older time, and no higher praise could 
be given. After quoting Tickell's re- 
mark that Addison "employed wit on 
the side of virtue and religion," John- 
son says, " He not only made the 
proper use of wit himself, but taught it 
to others ; and from his time it has 
been generally subservient to the cause 
of reason and of truth. He has dis- 
sipated the prejudice that had long 
connected gaiety and vice, and easiness 
of manners with laxity of principles. 
He has restored virtue to its dignity, 
and taught innocence not to be ashamed. 
This is an elevation of literary charac- 
ter, above all Greek^ above all Romcfa?ne. 
No greater felicity can genius attain 



than that of having purified intellectual 
pleasure, separated mirth from in- 
decency, and wit from licentiousness ; 
of having taught a succession of writers 
to bring elegance and gaiety to the aid 
of good men ; and, if I may use ex- 
pressions yet more awful, of having 
turned many to righteousness." 

To Johnson himself this tribute of 
praise may justly be applied, as having 
done for literature the same service 
which in his day was rendered by 
Addison, an honour truly above all 
Greek, above all Roman fame. 



*tiSr 'tSt 1 / tjjfrr *xfcr ^Hf* 

e5a5S595c23 

jjo, j*j, -sHv yfr J**. 







^<|)(|)i|>i|)(|)(|)^i|)(|)wwi<|>wwi|i 



OF the moral and religious side 
of Johnson's life and writings 
it is fitting that something 
should here be said. His 
mother (Sarah Ford was her maiden 
name) was a woman of much shrewd- 
ness and good sense, and her piety was 
not inferior to her understanding. By 
her Samuel was early trained in truth 
and virtue, and from her he obtained 
his first lessons of religious faith and 
duty. He tells us that these early im~ 



$ife an** tyflovk*. 57 

pressions were not very durable ; but, 
when at Oxford, as he records, he was 
diligent in the study of Scripture and 
of religious books. " I took up * Law's 
Serious Call to a Holy Life,' " he says, 
"expecting to find it a dull book, as 
such books generally are, and perhaps 
to laugh at it. But I found Law quite 
an over-match for me ; and this was 
the first occasion of my thinking in ear- 
nest of religion, after I became capable 
of rational inquiry." The solemnity of 
feeling in regard to religious subjects 
he never afterwards lost, although he 
himself confessed that he allowed other 
pursuits too much to engross his 
thoughts, and often lamented that his 
practice of Christian duties fell far 
short of what it ought to be. His pro- 
fession as a man of letters and dramatic 
critic sometimes brought him into 
dangerous associations. Poverty had 
also brought him in contact with 
strange and not always reputable com- 
panions, as with Savage; but nothing 



58 Q&ctov &oljtx&cm+ 

has ever truthfully been said against 
his own purity of life or honourable 
conduct. His own strong and honest 
intellect, with the study of the Chris- 
tian evidences, led him to fixed and 
firm conviction of the truths of revela- 
tion, and the main doctrines of the 
Christian creed. His devotions, his 
charities, the whole course of his life 
and tone of his character, attested the 
sincerity and strength of his belief. He 
attended church with much regularity, 
and partook of the sacrament with 
humble devotion. A volume of pri- 
vate prayer and meditation was pub- 
lished after his death, with notes of his 
thoughts and feelings, his confessions 
and resolves — notes never intended to 
see the light — and these give proof of 
his earnest desire throughout his life to 
live in communion with his Heavenly 
Father, and to mould his will to the 
spirit of his Saviour and Master. This 
devout frame of mind consecrated all 
his studies and labours. When he, 



giftf atxb ty$0vh&. 59 

alone and unaided, commenced the 
publication of the " Rambler," he com- 
posed and offered earnestly at the 
throne of grace the following prayer : 
" Almighty God, the Giver of all good 
things, without whose help all labour is 
ineffectual, and without whose grace all 
wisdom is folly : grant, I beseech Thee, 
that in this undertaking Thy Holy 
Spirit may not be withheld from me, 
but that I may promote Thy glory and 
the salvation of myself and others. 
Grant this, O Lord, for the sake of Thy 
Son, Jesus Christ. — Amen." Truly a 
noble resolve and admirable prayer in 
regard to literary as to all other work. 

In another of his prayers we find 
him pleading for grace to enable him 
" to use such diligence in lawful em- 
ployment as may enable me to support 
myself and do good to others. O 
Lord, forgive me the time lost in idle- 
ness; pardon the sins which I have 
committed, and grant that I may re- 
deem the time misspent, and be recon- 



60 Qactixv Q0\yn#0tx. 

ciled to Thee, in true repentance, that 
I may live and die in peace, and be 
received to everlasting happiness. Take 
not from me, O Lord, Thy Holy Spirit, 
but let me have support and comfort, 
for Jesus Christ's sake. — Amen." 

Very solemn and touching are the 
Prayers and Meditations on various oc- 
casions, always the outpourings of a 
pious and devout spirit. Of these posthu- 
mous devotional pieces, Dr. Parr said, 
"He that possesses both integrity of 
principle and tenderness of feeling — he 
that admires virtue and reveres religion 
— he that glows with love of mankind, 
and reposes his trust in God, will him- 
self become a wiser and better man 
from contemplating those thoughts 
which passed in the mind of one of the 
wisest and best of men, when he com- 
muned with his own heart, and poured 
forth his supplications before the throne 
of Heaven for mercy and for grace." 

While such was the general tone of 
Dr. Johnson's mind as to religion, and 



&tf* <*ttfcr %$0vk#. 



while he stood forth, in a frivolous and 
sceptical age, as a foremost defender of 
the faith, there was one element lack- 
ing in his Christian life and experience. 
He had the solemnity and godly fear 
without the peace and joy of a believer. 
Of death itself he had no terror, but the 
dread of what follows death often op- 
pressed his spirit. In his last visit to 
Oxford, at the house of his old tutor, 
Dr. Adams, of Pembroke, he surprised 
his friends by a solemn declaration of 
his fear for the future. " I cannot be 
sure," he said on another occasion, 
"that I have fulfilled the conditions on 
which salvation is granted ; I am afraid 
I may be one of those who shall be 
condemned." He never could feel 
sure that he had done enough for the 
salvation of his soul. Even in that 
memorable Uttoxeter scene in his old 
age, when he stood bareheaded in the 
market-place to make atonement for 
an act of disobedience in his youth, 
while the tenderness of conscience is 



62 QjQctov gtojjntfxro* 

admired, it is painful to find that he 
was ruled by what theologians call " the 
spirit of legality." " I hope," he says, 
"the penance was expiatory." All 
through his life the same spirit of self- 
righteousness runs, the notion of salva- 
tion being by works, in some form or 
other, instead of the evangelical doc- 
trine which Luther had so fully ex- 
pounded, and in his own bright active 
Christian life so nobly manifested, the 
doctrine of free salvation by grace, 
through faith. Lacking this truth, 
Johnson lacked the one thing which 
could give him real peace, to wit, true 
faith, or personal trust in the Saviour. 
Lacking this, he was one of those who, 
in Pauline phrase, "through fear of 
death are all their lifetime subject to 
bondage." 

But the light and the freedom came 
at last. It was this which Cowper re- 
ferred to in that epitaph which is one 
of the finest tributes ever paid to John- 
son's memory : 



Who many a noble gift from Heaven pos- 
sessed, 
And Faith at last, alone worth all the rest. 

He did not refer to intellectual belief, 
but to the faith which brings peace and 
joy. 

Dr. Brocklesby, his physician, a man 
who will not be suspected of fanaticism, 
told Boswell that "for some time be- 
fore his death all his fears were calmed 
and absorbed by the prevalence of his 
faith, and his trust in the merits and 
propitiation of Jesus Christ. He talked 
often to me about the necessity of faith 
in the sacrifice of Jesus, as necessary 
beyond all good works whatever for the 
salvation of mankind." A few days 
before his death he said to Brocklesby, 
who was alone with him, " Doctor, 
you are a worthy man, but I am afraid 
you are not a Christian ! What can I 
do better for you than offer up in your 
presence a prayer to the great God that 
you may become a Christian in my 
sense of the word ? " Instantly he 



64 Qactciv &0bn&0ti. 

knelt and put up a fervent prayer. 
When he got up he caught hold of his 
friend's hand with great eagerness, cry- 
ing, " Doctor, you do not say Amen ! " 
The doctor looked confused, but after 
a pause said " Amen." Johnson said, 
" My dear doctor, believe a dying man, 
there is no salvation but in the sacrifice 
of the Lamb of God." Other remark- 
able incidents and sayings are recorded, 
but enough has been mentioned to 
prove that a great change had passed 
over him during these latter days and 
weeks of his life. 

From other records of the last illness 
we learn that it was through conversa- 
tion with Mr. Latrobe, the Moravian 
bishop, for whom Johnson had the 
highest regard, and through letters 
received from a good clergyman, Mr. 
Winstanley, that he was led to embrace 
"evangelical" views as to acceptance 
with God, the views expressed in such 
Divine words as these, " Believe in the 
Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be 



gifb anb iptotrk** 65 

saved;" "He that believeth on the 
Son hath everlasting life." 

Receiving these truths, no wonder 
that his end was peace, and that he 
could say "the bitterness of death is 
past." He did not take to his bed till 
the day before he passed away, De- 
cember 13, 1784. Till within the last 
few hours his mind was clear, and his 
latest words were words of faith and 
love, of kindness and blessings. 

If Johnson had received the gospel 
in its freeness and fulness at an early 
period of his life, as Luther did, it 
would have been well for his personal 
peace and happiness. Whether his 
life would have been more useful to the 
world and the Church, it is vain now to 
conjecture. As a defender of revealed 
truth against the assaults of scoffers and 
infidels he rendered services for which 
he was fitted by his great intellect and 
learning. It was said not long since 
by Mr. Gladstone, that Johnson did 
more for the Church and State in 



66 jp^jctov gtolru#*m. 

England during the eighteenth century 
than all the statesmen and bishops that 
it produced. However this may be, 
there is no part of his biography that 
can be viewed with the same satisfac- 
tion as the closing scene, of which his 
friend Hannah More said, in the words 
Shakespeare, that "no action of his life 
became him like the leaving it." 

In the collected works of Dr. John- 
son, and in an appendix to Murray's 
edition of Boswell's Life, a complete 
chronological list is given of all the 
writings known to the public. The list 
fills many pages, and it is probable that 
many minor miscellaneous pieces are 
not included. The following are the 
dates at which his most important works 
appeared: "London, a Poem," in 1738; 
"The Vanity of Human Wishes, a 
Poem," in 1749; "The Rambler," 1749- 
1752; "The English Dictionary," 1754; 
"Rasselas," 1759; "The Lives of the 
Poets," 1777. He received his govern- 
ment pension of ^300 a year in 1762. 



Sife cxnfcr ^j&vvk*. 67 

His first introduction to Boswell was 
in 1763, and his acquaintance with 
the Thrales commenced shortly after. 
He died December 13, 1784. 

In now proceeding to give a selection 
from Johnson's Table Talk, we are 
reminded of his words with regard to 
Shakespeare : " His real power is not 
shown in the splendour of particular 
passages; and he that tries to recom- 
mend him by select quotations will 
succeed like the pedant in Hierocles, 
who, when he offered his house to sale, 
carried a brick in his pocket as a 
specimen." But there is another way 
of regarding such selections ; they may 
lead the reader to the larger works from 
which they are gathered, and so induce 
him to explore the mines from which 
such gems have been extracted. 




COWPER'S 
EPITAPH ON DOCTOR JOHNSON. 

" Here Johnson lies — a sage, by all allowed, 
Whom to have bred may well make England 

proud : 
Whose prose was eloquence by wisdom taught, 
The graceful vehicle of virtuous thought ; 
Whose verse may claim, grave, masculine, and 

strong, 
Superior praise to the mere poet's song ; 
Who many a noble gift from Heaven possess'd, 
And faith at last— alone worth all the rest. 
Oh ! man immortal by a double prize, 
On earth by fame, by favour in the skies I" 



TABLE TALK. 






LONDON. 

TALKING with Boswell about 
London, Johnson said, "Sir, 
if you wish to have a just 
notion of the magnitude of this 
city, you must not be satisfied with 
seeing its great streets and squares, 
but must survey the innumerable little 
lanes and courts. It is not in the 
showy evolutions of buildings, but in 
the multiplicity of human habitations 
which are crowded together that the 
wonderful immensity of London con- 



72 g)t% gttfljtttftftt* 

sists." What would he have said of 
the London of to-day ? 

* 
* * 

Talking of London life, he said, 
"The happiness of London is not to 
be conceived but by those who have 
been in it. I will venture to say, there 
is more learning and science within 
the circuit of ten miles from where we 
now sit than in all the rest of the 
kingdom." Boswell : "The only dis- 
advantage is the great distance at 
which people live from one another." 
Johnson : " Yes, sir ; but that is oc- 
casioned by the largeness of it, which 
is the cause of all the other advan- 
tages." 

On another occasion he said that 
"a man stored his mind better there 
than anywhere else ; and that in remote 
situations a man's body might be 
feasted, but his mind was starved, and 
his faculties apt to degenerate from 



want of exercise and competition. No 
place, he said, cured a man's vanity 
or arrogance so well as London ; for 
as no man was either great or good 
per se, but as compared with others 
not so good or great, he was sure to 
find in the metropolis many his equals 
and some his superiors." 

It being remarked that one might 
grow tired of London, and lose the 
exquisite zest with which occasional 
visits are relished, Johnson said, 
"Why, sir, you find no man at al 
intellectual who is willing to leave 
London. No, sir, when a man is 
tired of London, he is tired of life ; 
for there is in London all that life can 
afford." 

* * 

He said also, " There is no place 

where economy can be so well practised 

as in London ; more can be had for 

the money, even by the ladies, than 

4 



74 *I\0rt0v gjLtfljnawt* 

anywhere else. You cannot play tricks 
with your fortune in a small place ; you 
must make a uniform appearance. 
Here a lady may have well-furnished 
apartments, and elegant dress, without 
any meat in the kitchen." 

Walking to church at St Clement 
Danes, Boswell remarked that Fleet 
Street was the most cheerful scene in 
the world, more delighful than the 
Vale of Tempe. " Ay, sir," responded 
Johnson ; " but let it be compared 
with Mull ! " To a similar remark on 
another occasion Johnson replied, 
"Yes, sir, Fleet Street has a very 
animated appearance ; but I think the 
full tide of human existence is at 
Charing Cross." 










gg9E^9E^Sg§B9ES§BSS^§eS 



SCOTLAND AND SCOTCH- 
MEN. 

JOHNSON'S prejudice against 
Scotland and Scotchmen is one 
of the most amusing traits in his 
character. Much of his banter- 
ing on the subject arose out of his love 
of teasing Boswell ; but he showed his 
dislike long before he met his bio- 
grapher. At the very first interview 
the silly Boswell exposed himself to 
ridicule. It was in the back parlour 
of the shop of Davies the bookseller ; 
who, on seeing Johnson coming in, 
said he would introduce Boswell, who 
was drinking tea with Davies and his 
wife. 



76 gltfcttftr §i0lj%%#0tt* 

11 Don't tell him where I come from," 
said Bos well. 

" Mr. Boswell, from Scotland," said 
Davies, roguishly. 

"Mr. Johnson," said Boswell, in 
apologetic tone ; ** I do indeed come 
from Scotland, but I cannot help it." 

It was an unlucky speech, although 
intended to be conciliatory and sub- 
missive. 

" That, sir," said Johnson, who took 
the Scotticism as meaning that he had 
left his native country, not that he 
merely belonged to it by birth ; " that, 
sir, I find, is what a great many of 
your countrymen cannot help ! " 

* * 
Not long afterwards Boswell enter- 
tained Johnson at the Mitre Tavern, 
and had among his guests Mr. Ogilvie, 
a fellow-Scotchman, who had written 
a poem. He asked Johnson's per- 
mission to introduce him. "Certainly," 
said the Doctor, with sly pleasantry 
adding, "but he must give us none 




Mr. Boswell, from Scotland." — Page 76. 



f&able ®alk* 77 

of his poetry." Ogilvie was unlucky 
enough to choose for his topic of con- 
versation the praises of his native land. 
He thought he was safe in saying 
that Scotland had a great many noble, 
wild prospects. "I believe, sir," said 
Johnson, "you have a great many. 
Norway, too, has noble, wild prospects ; 
and Lapland is remarkable for pro- 
digious noble, wild prospects. But, 
sir, let me tell you, the noblest prospect 
which a Scotchman can see is the high 
road that leads him to England," a 
sally which set all the company in a 
roar. 

* * 
Of the learning of Scotland he had 
little opinion. "Their learning," he 
said, " is like bread in a besieged 
town; every man gets a little, but no 
man gets a full meal. There is in 
Scotland a diffusion of learning, a cer- 
tain portion of it widely and thinly 
spread. A merchant has as much learn- 
ing as one of their clergy. 



78 Qoctov gtol}n#<m* 

Johnson behaved well, however, on 
the whole, and paid due respect and 
courtesy to the northern notables with 
whom he came in contact during his 
visit to Scotland and the Western Isles. 
For some of the Scotchmen of that 
time, such as Robertson and Beattie, 
he had high esteem. He nevertheless 
continued his playful banter after re- 
turning to London. At a dinner at 
the house of Mr. Dilly, the bookseller, 
in the Poultry, Mr. Arthur Lee men- 
tioned some Scotch emigrants who had 
settled in a barren part of America, 
and wondered why they should choose 
it. " Why, sir," said Johnson ; " all 
barrenness is comparative. The Scotch 
would not know it to be barren." Bos- 
well appealed to him as to whether he 
did not see meat and drink enough in 
Scotland. "Why, yes, sir; meat and 
drink enough to give the inhabitants 
sufficient strength to run away from 
home." 

John Wilkes was at the table, and 



©able ©aUt* 79 

enjoyed heartily the jokes about Scot- 
land, his prejudices on the subject 
being as strong as Johnson's. Boswell 
claimed superiority over England in 
some matters of law. No man, for 
instance, can be there arrested for 
debt at the mere charge of a creditor ; 
judgment must first be obtained, and 
arrest is only allowed when the creditor 
can swear that his debtor is in medita- 
tione fugce, or about to fly from the 
country. "That, I should think," said 
Wilkes, "may be safely sworn of all 
the Scotch nation." 

* 
* * 

When at Edinburgh, Johnson was 
urged to go to hear Principal Robertson, 
the historian, preach ; he being also 
one of the city clergy. " I will hear 
him," said the Doctor, " if he will get 
up into a tree and preach, but I will 
not give a sanction, by my presence, to 
a Presbyterian assembly." 



t3t ^Sr -6*r -tifer -tiBr ~tifr -*£r "Mr i$r t>tr tfcr 'xlir t*t 




o^ a*i/ 3p/ o^ vqjb >^tx j:*^ &<L Cqfc. j^- j>fc jsj^ j6(£ 



JOHNSON AND WILKES. 

THIS community of feeling' 
seemed to draw Johnson and 
Wilkes the nearer, for they 
had already had some interest- 
ing conversation during the evening. 
Alderman Lee having uttered the 
loyally pathetic plaint, "Poor old 
England is lost ! " Johnson said, " Sir, 
it is not so much to be lamented that 
old England is lost, as that the Scotch 
have found it," a sly allusion to the 
North Briton controversy in which 
Wilkes figured so conspicuously. " Had 



©rtbU ©rtlh* 81 

Lord Bute," said Wilkes, u governed 
Scotland only I should not have taken 
the trouble to write his eulogy." It 
was after this event that Johnson said 
how much he had enjoyed Mr. Wilkes' 
company. 

* * 
On a subsequent occasion Johnson 
and Wilkes again met at the dinner 
table of Mr. Dilly. The subject of 
Scotland again gave cause for merri- 
ment, chiefly at the expense of Boswell 
and Dr. Beattie of Aberdeen, author 
of * The Minstrel." Boswell was asked 
how much an advocate could make at 
the Scottish bar. He answered, about 
^2000. Wilkes asked, " How can it 
be possible to spend that money in 
Scotland ? " On which Johnson inter- 
posed with what he said was a harder 
question, "If one man in Scotland 
gets possession of ^2000, what could 
remain for the rest of the nation?" 
Wilkes said, "You know in the last 
war the immense booty which Thurot 

4* 



82 Qactav gjLj0i}n#jcm + 

carried off by the complete plunder 
of seven Scotch isles; he re-embarked 
with three and sixpence ! " 

All this seems now rather small talk, 
but the simplicity of Boswell in putting 
this raillery on record is highly amus- 
ing. The same may be said about the 
familiar jokes as to oats being the food 
of horses in England and of men in 
Scotland; the loss of Johnson's stick 
in the Isle of Mull past all recovering, 
"considering the value of such a piece 
of timber there ; " and many such jests, 
in spite of all which every Scotchman 
delights in Johnson's Scottish Tour. 






■Jfx. ••Jv sf\. Jjv Jfc. Jjx. ^\. ^^- ^>. .yjv .yjv v^. vp. Jfr* ■sfc- *&• -*V* '*fc -'T*- 



LUXURY HAS BENEFITS. 

AT ANY cry out against the evil of 
luxury. Now, the truth is that 
luxury produces much good. A man 
gives half a guinea for a dish of green 
peas. How much gardening does this 
occasion ? How many labourers must 
the competition to have such things 
early in the market keep in employ- 
ment ? You will hear it said gravely, 
"Why was not the half-guinea, thus 
spent in luxury, given to the poor? 
To how many might it have afforded a 
good meal ? " Alas ! has it not gone 
to the industrious poor, whom it is 
better to support than the idle poor. 
You are much surer that you are doing 



84 Ipcu'totr gtolju^mt* 

good when you pay money to those 
who work, as the recompense of their 
labour, than when you give money 
merely in charity. 



GRATIFICATION AT SEEING ONE'S 
WORKS. 

YVTHEN viewing Keddlestone, the 
seat of Lord Scarsdale, during 
his Derbyshire tour, the Doctor espied 
the small edition of the Dictionary in his 
lordship's dressing-room. He showed it 
to Bos well with some eagerness, saying, 
" Look ye, Quce regio in terris no sir i 
non plena laboris ? " Observing also 
Goldsmith's " Animated Nature," he 
said, " Here's our friend ! The poor 
doctor would have been happy to bear 
of this!" 



GOLDSMITH'S WISH FOR NEW MEM- 
BERS AT THE CLUB. 

/^OLD^MITH once said that he 
^"^ wished they had some new mem- 
bers at the Club to give variety, " for," 



l&abU ©rtlk* 85 

said he, " there can be nothing new 
among us, we have travelled over one 
another's minds." Johnson seemed a 
little angry, and said, " Sir, you have 
not travelled over my mind, I promise 
you." Sir Joshua, however, thought 
Goldsmith was right, as when people 
are much together they usually know 
what each will say on every ordinary 
subject of conversation. 



DR. YOUNG OF THE NIGHT 
THOUGHTS. 

'""THE admiration of Young and John- 
son was mutual and warm. Young 
said of Rasselas that the book was 
"one mass of good sense." Johnson 
said of the " Night Thoughts " that it 
" exhibited a very wide display of 
original poetry, variegated with deep 
reflection and striking allusions," and 
that it was " one of the few poems in 
which blank verse could not be changed 
for rhyme but with disadvantage." 



86 Qoctov gcftynxon. 

WORKS OF FICTION. 

CPEAKING of the sameness in 
writers of novels he said, "There 
is very small quantity of real fiction 
in the world ; and the same images, 
with very little variation, have served 
all the authors who have ever written." 

*$? 

RICHARD BAXTER. 

TI> OS WELL asked what works of 
Baxter he should read. He said, 
" Read any of them ; they are all 
good." ^ 

A MEDICAL FOP. 

A FOPPISH physician once re- 
minded Johnson of his having 
been in company with him on a former 
occasion. "I do not remember it, sir." 
The physician still insisted, adding that 
he that day wore so fine a coat that it 
must have attracted his notice. "Sir," 
said Johnson, "had you been dipped 
in Pactolus, I should not have noticed 
you." 



FINE COATS. 

HPHE mention of a fine coat by the 
medical fop recals the strange 
costumes fashionable in those days. 
The first time Johnson met Wilkes, at 
a dinner party given by Mr. Dilly the 
bookseller, while the guests were as- 
sembling Johnson asked, " Who is that 
with the lace coat ?" It was Jack 
Wilkes, who usually assumed the garb 
and airs of " a fine gentleman." When 
Goldsmith once got some money his 
first purchase was a gay plum-coloured 
coat! 

CLASSICAL QUOTATIONS. 

'""THE subject of quoting well-known 
authors being introduced, Wilkes 
censured it as pedantry. Johnson said, 
" No, sir ; it is a good thing ; there is 
a community of mind in it. Classical 
quotation is the parole of literary men 
all over the world." 



88 Hri*xcti?v gi0l)%x&0tu 

PLACES FOR WORSHIP. 

HPALKING of devotion he said, 
* "Though it be true that 'God 
dwelleth not in a temple made with 
hands,' yet in this state of being our 
minds are more piously affected in 
places appropriated to divine worship 
than in other places. Some people 
have a particular room in their houses 
where they say their prayers ; of which 
I do not disapprove, as it may animate 
their devotion." 



HUME'S ARGUMENT AGAINST 
MIRACLES. 

T^ALKING of Johnson's unwilling- 
ness to believe extraordinary things, 
or things contrary to the ordinary course 
of nature, Boswell said, " Sir, you come 
very near Hume's argument against 
miracles; that it is more probable 
witnesses should be deceived or lie than 
that miracles should happen." Johnson 
said, "Why, sir, Hume, taking the propo- 
sition simply, is right. But a Christian 



©able fKallx. 89 

revelation is not proved by miracles 
alone, but as connected with the 
prophecies, and with the doctrines in 
confirmation of which miracles were 
wrought." 

JOHNSON'S OPINION OF HUME. 

ID OS WELL having mentioned that 
he was much shocked by David 
Hume persisting in his infidelity when 
he was dying, Johnson said, "Why 
should it shock you, sir ? Hume owned 
he had never read the New Testament 
with attention. Here then was a man 
who had been at no pains to inquire 
into the truth of religion, and had con- 
tinually turned his mind the other way. 
It was not to be expected that the pros- 
pect of death would alter his way of 
thinking, unless God should send an 
angel to set him right." Boswell said 
he had reason to believe that the 
thought of annihilation gave Hume no 
pain. Johnson : " It was not so, sir. 
He had a vanity in being thought easy. 



90 ^0d0V gjtoljlt00tt« 

It is more probable that he should 
assume an appearance of ease than so 
very improbable a thing should be, as 
a man not afraid of going (as, in spite 
of his delusive theory, he cannot be 
sure but he may go) into an unknown 
state, and not being uneasy." 

BOLINGBROKE. 

WfHEN Lord Bolingbroke's post- 
humous works appeared, edited 
by David Mallet, Johnson spoke with 
great indignation of the writer on 
account of his infidel principles : " Sir, 
he was a scoundrel and a coward; a 
scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss 
against religion and morality ; a coward 
because he had not resolution to fire it 
off himself, but left half a crown to a 
beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger 
after his death." 

«$» 

THE HEADS ON TEMPLE BAR. 

T OHNSON and Goldsmith being once 
together in Westminster Abbey, in 



f&ablc ®*ik. 9* 



surveying Poets' Corner, Johnson said, 
" Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur 
istis." " When we got to Temple Bar," 
says Johnson, " Goldsmith stopped me, 
pointed to the heads of rebels upon it, 
and slily whispered me, 'Forsitan et 
nostrum nomen miscebitur istis.' " 

DRINKING AND INTEMPERANCE. 

TDOSWELL, one of whose failings 
*-* was love of wine to excess, fre- 
quently led Johnson to talk on the 
subject, sometimes with the hope of 
finding excuse for his own convivial 
tastes. He generally got severely 
handled on such occasions. Once he 
resolutely ventured to defend the habit 
of indulgence in wine, quoting the 
phrase in vino Veritas, seeing that a 
man well warmed with wine will speak 
truth. "Why, sir," said Johnson, 
" that may be an argument for drink- 
ing, if you suppose men in general 
to be liars. But, sir, I would not keep 
company with a fellow who lies as long 



92 Qoct&v &0tyn&0n. 

as he his sober, and whom you must 
make drunk before you can get a word 
of truth out of him." 

BEGONE, DULL CARE ! 

TD OSWELL said that "drinking drives 
away care, and makes us forget 
whatever is disagreeable. Would you 
not allow a man to drink for that 
reason?" "Yes, sir," said Johnson, 
" if he sat next to you." Poor Bozzy ! 

PLEASURE OR HAPPINESS. 

TEMPERANCE in drinking was the 
subject of talk one night at the 
club. Johnson said he did not leave 
off drinking wine because he could not 
bear it, he had drank three bottles of 
port at the university without being the 
worse for it. "But," he said, "it is 
better for a man never to lose the 
power over himself." He was re- 
minded that he had said that not to 
drink wine was a deduction from life. 



©ctHe ©rtlk* 93 

He replied, " It is a diminution of 
pleasure, to be sure ; but I do not 
say a diminution of happiness. When 
we talk of pleasure we mean sensual 
pleasure. Pleasure, as philosophers tell 
you, is contrary to happiness. Gross 
men prefer animal pleasure." 

TEMPERANCE AND ABSTINENCE. 

'""TALKING of a man's resolving to 
deny himself the use of wine from 
moral and religious considerations, he 
said, "We must not doubt about it. 
When one doubts as to pleasure, we 
know what will be the conclusion. I 
now no more think of drinking wine 
than a horse does. The wine upon 
the table is no more for me than for 
the dog that is under the table." He 
said he " had no objection to a man's 
drinking wine if he can do it in mod- 
eration. I found myself apt to go to 
excess in it, and therefore, after having 
been for some time without it on account 
of illness, I thought it better not to 



94 ^0ctov JjtoJ}n#*n* 

return to it. Every man is to judge 
for himself, according to the effects he 
experiences." 

Johnson continued his temperate 
habits — in fact, complete abstinence — 
till the last, his drink at the club being 
usually lemonade. 

LAW AS A PROFESSION. 

TN conversation about the legal pro- 
fession in England he said, "You 
must not indulge in too sanguine 
hopes should you be called to our 
bar. I was told by a very sensible 
lawyer that there are a great many 
chances against any man's success in 
the profession of the law ; the candi- 
dates are so numerous, and those who 
get practice so few. He said it was by 
no means true that a man of good 
parts and application is sure of having 
business, though he indeed allowed 
that if such a man could but appear in 
a few causes, his merit would be known; 
and he would get forward; but that the 



®aMe ®<*lh* 95 



great risk was, that a man might pass 

half a lifetime in the courts, and never 

have an opportunity of showing his 

abilities." * 

* * 

Sir William Scott, upon the death 
of Lord Lichfield, Chancellor of the 
University of Oxford, said to Johnson, 
" What a pity it is, sir, that you did not 
follow the profession of the law. You 
might have been Lord Chancellor of 
Great Britain, and attained to the 
dignity of the peerage ; and now that 
the title of Lichfield, your native city, 
is extinct, you might have had it." 
Johnson upon this seemed much agi- 
tated, and in an angry tone exclaimed, 
11 Why will you vex me by suggesting 
this when it is too late? " This was in 
1778, when he was 69. 

CONVERSATION. 

PJOR conversation," Johnson said, 
* " there must, in the first place, be 
knowledge; there must be materials.: in 



9 6 gljociatr |*£rj}rt£*m. 



the second place, there must be com- 
mand of words : in the third place, 
there must be imagination, to place 
things in such views as they are not 
commonly seen in ; and in the fourth 
place, there must be presence of mind, 
and a resolution that is not to be 
overcome by failures. This last is an 
essential requisite ; for want of it 
many people do not excel in conversa- 
tion. Now I want it ; I throw up the 
game upon losing a trick." Boswell 
remarked, " I don't know, sir, how this 
may be ; but I am sure you beat other 
people's cards out of their hands." 
Johnson did not hear this remark, or, 
if he did, took no notice of the im- 
pertinence. 

* * 
Though his usual phrase for con- 
versation was talk) yet he made a 
distinction, for he once told Boswell 
that " he had dined the day before at 
a friend's house, with a very pretty 
company." Being asked if there was 



good conversation, he answered, " No, 
sir ; we had talk enough, but no con- 
versation; there was nothing discussed" 

*$? 

EDMUND BURKE. 

I_TE said of Burke that "you could 
not stand five minutes with that 
man beneath a shed while it rained, but 
you must be convinced you had been 
standing with the greatest man you 
had ever seen." 

JUNIUS. 

TPALKING of the wonderful conceal- 
ment of the author of the cele- 
brated letters signed Junius, he said, 
"I should have believed Burke to 
be Junius, because I know no man 
but Burke who is capable of writing 
these letters ; but Burke spontaneously 
denied it to me. The case would have 
been different had I asked him if he 
was the author j a man so questioned, 
as to an anonymous publication, may 
think he has a right to deny it," 
S 



98 Qoctav Qoljtt&otx. 

OCEAN. 

A GENTLEMAN told Johnson that 
a friend, looking into the Dic- 
tionary, could not find the word ocean. 
"Not find ocean?" said the lexico- 
grapher, stalking into the library to see 
if he had possibly made the omission ; 
and then, rapidly turning the leaves, 
pointed triumphantly to the word : 
" There, sir ; there is ocean / But never 
mind it, sir; perhaps your friend spells 
ocean with an s" 

* 

DR. PARR. 

A T the first interview of this learned 
scholar with Dr. Johnson, they got 
very warm in an argument. The subject 
was the liberty of the press. " While 
Johnson was arguing," says Parr, "I 
observed that he stamped. Upon this 
I stamped. Dr. Johnson said, ' Why 
did you stamp, Dr. Parr ? ' I replied, 
' Sir, because you stamped ; and I was 
resolved not to give you the advantage 
even of a stamp, in the argument. ' '• 



©able ®alk. 99 

Parr soon showed the highest esteem 
and veneration for Johnson, and ex- 
pressed this in many ways. In recom- 
mending to a friend the study of the 
posthumous volume of the Doctor's 
Prayers and Meditations, he described 
them as " the thoughts which passed 
through the mind of the wisest and 
best of men when he communed with 
his own heart, and poured forth his 
supplication before the throne of Hea- 
ven for mercy and for grace." It was 
Parr who wrote the Latin epitaph re- 
corded on Johnson's monument in St. 
Paul's Cathedral. 

«$» 

OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. 

TN Johnson's last illness, he said to 
1 his friend Mr. Nicholls, " Take 
care of your eternal salvation. Re- 
member to observe the Sabbath. Let 
it never be a day of business, nor 
wholly a day of dissipation. Let my 
words have their due weight. They 
are the words of a dying man." He 



ioo gJoctov |jLjc*l}tt#<m* 

had spoken in the same strain to Sir 
Joshua Reynolds, who gave his pro- 
mise never to follow his calling on 
Sunday. David Cox used to mention 
Reynolds as an honourable example in 
this respect to young artists. 



LIFE OF A CLERGYMAN. 

lV/TEETING with an old college 
friend, Edwards of Pembroke, 
now a lawyer, Edwards said he regretted 
he had not continued at college, as he 
should have been a parson, and had a 
good living, and lived an easier and 
more comfortable life. Johnson took 
him up instantly. "Sir, the life of a 
parson, of a conscientious clergyman, 
is not easy. I have always considered 
a clergyman as the father of a larger 
family than he is able to maintain. I 
would rather have a chancery suit on 
my hands than the cure of souls. No, 
sir, I do not envy the clergyman who 
makes it an easy life." 



In the same spirit he wrote to a 
young clergyman in the country an ex- 
cellent letter of advice, which he thus 
concludes : " All means must be tried 
by which souls may be saved. Talk 
to your people as much as you can ; 
and you will find the more frequently 
you converse with them on religious 
subjects, the more willingly they will 
attend, and the more submissively they 
will learn. A clergyman's diligence 
always makes him venerable. I think 
I have now only to say that in the 
momentous work you have undertaken, 
I pray God to bless you." This letter 
was written from Bolt Court, August 
30, 1780. 

♦ 

PREACHING. 

HTALKING of preaching, and of the 
great success of John Wesley and 
the Methodists, he said, " Sir, it is 
owing to their expressing themselves 
in a plain and familiar manner, which 
is the only way to do good to the 



102 Q0&0V Q0\qn#0tt. 

common people, and which clergymen 
of genius and learning ought to do 
from a principle of duty ; a practice 
for which they will be praised by men 
of sense. To insist against drunkenness 
as a crime because it debases reason, 
the noblest faculty of man, would be 
of no service to the common people; 
but to tell them that they may die in 
a fit of drunkenness, and show them 
how dreadful that would be, cannot 
fail to make a deep impression." 

A WOMAN PREACHING. 

TDOSWELL told him one Sunday 
that he had been to a meeting of 
the people called Friends, or Quakers, 
and heard a woman preach. " Sir," 
said Johnson, "a woman's preaching 
is like a dog walking on his hind legs. 
It is not done well, but you are sur- 
prised that it is done at all." 



©able CfrnUt* 103 

DAVID GARRICK. 

COON after the formation of the 
Literary Club, Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds was speaking of it to Garrick, 
who said, "I like it much. I think 
I shall be of you." When this was 
told to Johnson he was much dis- 
pleased. " He'll be of us ! How does 
he know we will permit him ? The 
first duke in England has no right to 
use such language." However, when 
Garrick was regularly proposed some 
years afterwards, Johnson warmly and 
kindly supported him, and he became 
a most agreeable member, attending to 
the time of his death. 

* * 
To Mrs. Siddons, in the interview 
he had with her in 1783, he said, 
" Garrick was no declaimer ; there was 
not one of his own scene-shifters who 
could not have spoken To be or not to 
be, better than he did ; yet he was the 
only actor I ever saw whom I could 
call a master both in tragedy and 



104 Qcictov &0l)tt&0n+ 

comedy, though I liked him best in 
comedy. A true conception of charac- 
ter, and natural expression of it, were 
his distinguishing excellences." 

LORD CHATHAM. 

T ORD CHATHAM was a dictator. 
He possessed the power of put- 
ting the State in motion ; now there is 
no power : all order is relaxed " (1778). 

JOHN WESLEY. 

JOHN WESLEY'S conversation is 
good, but he is never at leisure. 
He is always obliged to go at a certain 
hour. This is very disagreeable to a 
man who loves to fold his legs and 
have out his talk, as I do." 

* * 
He said, "John Wesley can talk 
well on any subject." Bos well asked 
what he thought of a ghost story to 
which Wesley gave credit, and which 
was making much controversy at the 



f&able t$alk* 105 

time. Johnson said, "Charles Wes- 
ley, who is a much more stationary 
man, does not believe the story. I 
am sorry John did not take more pains 
to inquire into the evidence for it." 

«$» 

BOSWELL AND JOHN WESLEY. 

ID OS WELL wished to be introduced 
to Wesley, and Johnson wrote this 
letter : " Sir, Mr. Boswell, a gentleman 
who has been long known to me, is 
desirous of being known to you, and 
has asked this recommendation, which I 
give him with great willingness, because 
I think it very much to be wished that 
worthy and religious men should be 
acquainted with each other. I am, sir, 
your humble servant, Samuel Johnson." 
Mr. Wesley was, in the course of his 
ministry, then at Edinburgh (May, 
1779), and on this letter being pre- 
sented, received Boswell very politely. 
BoswelPs wish for the introduction was 
chiefly to ask about the Newcastle-on- 
Tyne ghost story ! 

5 ;; 



io6 ^octov &0\)n&&n. 

GHOSTS. 

HTALKING of ghosts, he said, " It 
is wonderful that five thousand 
years have now elapsed since the crea- 
tion of the world, and still it is un- 
decided whether or not there has ever 
been an instance of the spirit of any 
person appearing after death. All argu- 
ment is against it ; but all belief is for 
it." 

* 

THE COCK LANE GHOST. 

A S the general opinion is that John- 
son was weakly credulous on this 
subject, it may be well to state his real 
opinions. Churchill, in his satirical 
poem, "The Ghost," made unworthy 
use of the credulity ascribed to John- 
son, and under the name of Pomposo 
represented him as one of the chief 
believers in the celebrated Cock Lane 
ghost. Whereas Johnson was one of 
the chief detectors of the imposture, 
along with Dr. Douglas, the Bishop 



f&ablz faalk. 107 

of Salisbury ; and he wrote an account 
of the deception in the newspapers, 
and in the Gentleman's Magazine. 



APPARITIONS POSSIBLE. 

l_J E admitted that all such questions 
were fit subjects for inquiry and 
of testimony. He said " he knew one 
friend, who was an honest and sensible 
man, who told him he had seen a ghost 
— old Mr. Edward Cave, the printer, 
at St. John's Gate You have not only 
the general report and belief, but you 
have many voluntary solemn confes- 
sions." He discussed the subject more 
fully in "Rasselas," and in the "Jour- 
nal of a Tour to the Hebrides." 

FANCY AND FACT AS TO GHOSTS. 

r ~THE following statement appears in 
a conversation with Boswell. He 
said, "I make a distinction between 
what a man may experience by mere 
strength of his imagination, and what 



108 doctor g£cr!jtt#cm» 

imagination cannot possibly produce. 
Thus, suppose I should think that I saw 
a form, and heard a voice say, 'Johnson, 
you are a very wicked fellow, and un- 
less you repent you will certainly be 
punished,' my own unworthiness is so 
deeply impressed on my mind, that I 
might imagine I thus saw and heard, 
and therefore I should not believe that 
an external communication had been 
made to me. But if a form should ap- 
pear, and a voice should tell me that a 
particular man had died at a particular 
place and a particular hour, a fact 
which I had no apprehension of, nor 
any means of knowing, and this fact, 
with all its circumstances, should after- 
wards be unquestionably proved, I 
should in that case be persuaded that 
I had supernatural intelligence imparted 
to me." 

He said of apparitions, " A total 
disbelief of them is adverse to the 
opinion of the existence of the soul 
between death and the last day ; the 



f&abU ®alk* 109 

question simply is, whether departed 
spirits ever have the power of making 
themselves perceptible to us. A man 
who thinks he has seen an appa- 
rition can only be convinced himself; 
his authority will not convince another ; 
and his conviction, if rational, must be 
founded on being told something which 
cannot be known but by supernatural 
means." 

* * 
On this occasion Johnson discoursed 
on the curious phenomenon of persons 
being called, that is, hearing one's name 
pronounced by the voice of a known 
person at a great distance, far beyond 
the possibility of being actually heard. 
The Doctor said that " one day at Ox- 
ford, as he was turning the key of his 
chamber, he heard his mother distinctly 
call Sam. She was then at Lichfield, 
but nothing came of it." Cases are 
frequently mentioned of such calls, 
though not so frequently as of appa- 
ritions to the sight. Boswell told of a. 



no Qvctov QoVinaon. 

friend who heard his name distinctly 
called by a brother who had gone to 
America. The next packet brought 
accounts of that brother's death. 



RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

YVTITH regard to the resurrection of 
the dead Dr. Johnson said that 
Scripture clearly taught that we shall 
not be raised with the same bodies 
(i Cor. xv.). He said to Mrs. Hall, 
John Wesley's sister, " You cannot 
suppose that we shall rise with a 
diseased body ; it is enough if there 
be such a sameness as to distinguish 
identity of persons." 



LIFE AT AN INN. 

JOHNSON often spoke with satis- 
faction of tavern life. "There is 
no private house," he said, " in which 
people can enjoy themselves so well as 
at a capital tavern. Let there be ever 



€£<tble f&alk. in 



so great plenty of good things, ever 
so much grandeur, ever so much ele- 
gance, ever so much desire that every- 
body should be easy, in the nature of 
things it cannot be : there must always 
be some degree of care and anxiety. 
The master of the house is anxious to 
entertain his guests — the guests are 
anxious to be agreeable to him ; and no 
man, but a very impudent dog indeed, 
can as freely command what is in 
another man's house, as if it was his 
own. Whereas, at a tavern, there is a 
general freedom from anxiety. You are 
sure you are welcome ; and the more 
noise you make, the more trouble you 
give, the more good things you call for, 
the welcomer you are. No servants 
will attend you with the alacrity which 
waiters do, who are incited by the pro- 
spect of an immediate reward in pro- 
portion as they please. No, sir, there 
is nothing which has yet been contrived 
by man, by which so much happiness 
is produced as by a good tavern or 



ii2 ^Cfdov %ici[)tx$0n* 

inn." He then repeated with great 
emotion Shenstone's lines : 

Whoe'er has travelled life's dull round, 
Where'er his stages may have been, 

May sigh to think he still has found 
The warmest welcome at an inn. 



THE "THREE CROWNS" AT 
LICHFIELD. 

'W7HEN Johnson took Boswell to 
Lichfield in 1776, they put up at 
the " Three Crowns " — not one of the 
great inns, but a good old-fashioned 
one, kept by a Mr. Wilkins, and was 
next door to the house where Johnson 
was born and brought up. There was 
much interest in the town, and hospi- 
tality pressed on them, but Johnson 
preferred staying at the "Three Crowns," 
and thoroughly enjoyed it. 

One of the houses visited by the 
Doctor when at Lichfield was that of 
Mrs. Gastrel, widow of the clergyman 
who was barbarian enough to cut down 







ir THEY PUT UP AT THE * THREE CROWNS, 1 " — Page 112, 



©able ®ctlk* 113 

Shakespeare's mulberry tree at Strat- 
ford-on-Avon, because he was annoyed 
by the numbers of people coming to 
look at it ! Mrs. Gastrel was sister to 
Lady Aston, one of whose daughters, 
known as a London toast, Molly Aston, 
was an early flame of Johnson, and 
afterwards married Captain Brodie of 
the Navy. Her picture by Sir Joshua 
was in the winter exhibition at Burling- 
ton House in 1883-4. 

Boswell has recorded many of the 
things said by Johnson in this Lich- 
field visit, when in company with Peter 
Garrick, Canon Seward, Mistress Lucy 
Porter, Dr. Taylor, and other friendly 
and hospitable residents of the old 
city. 

* 

PRAISE NOT ALWAYS SERVICEABLE. 

T^O Dr. Taylor he made a singular 
remark. He was commending a 
physician, who was thought skilful but 
not popular. " Many a battle I fight for 
him,*' said Dr. Taylor, " as many people 



ii4 Q#ci0v gluotyn*j0tt. 

in the country dislike him." Johnson 
said he was wrong in thus praising him 
in argument. " You should consider, 
sir, that by every one of your victories 
he is a loser ; for every man of whom 
you get the battle will be very angry, 
and resolve not to employ him ; where- 
as, if people get the better of you in 
argument, they are pleased, and think, 

We'll send for Dr. nevertheless." 

It was a shrewd and useful hint in the 
unpopular doctor's favour. 

* 

DRESS AS INCREASING RESPECT. 

TT was at Dr. Taylor's also that 
Boswell brought down a scolding 
upon himself in a conversation about 
dress. He had been arguing as to 
the almost invariable effect of good 
dress in increasing respect. Johnson 
said, "No, sir; fine clothes are good 
only as they supply the want of other 
means of procuring respect. Was 
Cfrarles XII., think you, less respected 



©able ®alh* 115 

for his coarse blue coat and black 
stock? And you find the King of 
Prussia dresses plain, because the dig- 
nity of his character is sufficient." 
Boswell here unwisely interposed, 
" Would not you, sir, be the better for 
velvet embroidery ? " To which the 
Doctor replied, "Sir, you put an end 
to all argument when you introduce 
your opponent himself. Have you no 
better manners ? There is your want" 
Poor Bozzy apologized by saying, "I 
mentioned you, sir, as an instance of 
one who wanted as little as any man 
in the world, and yet, perhaps, might 
receive some additional lustre from 
dress." 

«$» 

JOHNSON'S DISREGARD OF DRESS. 

t> OS WELL was right, so far as the 
avoidance of what was disagreeable 
was concerned, if not increase of respect. 
Johnson was sometimes a sad sloven. 
At Mrs. Thrale's a footman always had 
f< a company wig ' ? ready to replace 



n6 Q0ct&v gjtoJpttittn* 

the Doctor's rugged and often singed 
covering, when going to the drawing- 
room or dining-room. The scene at 
the Temple, when he lodged there, 
is a familiar one, the Doctor being 
ludicrously described as seeing one 
visitor to her carriage in a miserable 
dressing-gown and with wig a-wry. 
But it was from carelessness not from 
defiance of propriety that these im- 
proprieties were witnessed. Frank 
Barber, the black valet, must surely be 
most to blame for allowing his master 
to get into such slovenly habits. Of 
Johnson's sense of propriety as to dress 
let one instance be given. Goldsmith's 
last comedy was to be produced, and 
Mr. Steevens made appointment to call 
on him and carry him to the tavern 
where they and other friends of the 
author were to dine. The Doctor was 
ready, but in coloured clothes, un- 
aware or forgetting that it was a time 
when society was in Court-mourning. 
Being told that every one would be in 



®c*Me ®c*lk* 117 

black, he was profusely thankful to 
Steevens for telling him; hastened to 
change his attire, and reiterating his 
gratitude for being prevented from the 
unseemly appearance which he would 
have made in the front row of a front 
box ! " I would not for ten pounds," 
he added, " have seemed so retrograde 
to any general observance. " 



JOHNSON'S COMPANY MANNERS. 

/^N proper occasions he was rather 
^^ scrupulous as to the propriety of 
dress, and his manners in company were 
often studiously yet not obtrusively 
polite. With ladies he was generally 
a favourite, and his compliments and 
flatteries were sometimes most happy. 
At the time that Miss Linley was in 
her highest fame as a singer, Johnson 
came in the evening to drink tea with 
Miss Reynolds, and when he entered 
the room she said to him, "See, Dr. 
[ohnson, what a preference I give to 



n8 gJixduw gjtojjn&cm* 



your company, for I had an offer of a 
place in a box at the Oratorio to hear 
Miss Linley; but I would rather sit 
with you than hear Miss Linley sing." 
"And I, madam," replied Johnson, 
"would rather sit with you than sit 
upon a throne." He was not to be 
outdone even in a trifling compliment ! 



GALLANTRY TO LADIES. 

•""TO blind Mrs. Williams, and Mrs. 
Desmoulins, and other ladies of 
humble position, he always showed the 
most kind and considerate courtesy 
and kindness. His reference to Mrs. 
Williams, in a letter to Mrs. Lucy 
Porter, the year before his own death, 
is very touching. Having spoken of 
the death of Mr. Porter, he says, 
" Death has likewise visited my mourn- 
ful habitation. Last month died Mrs. 
Williams, who had been to me for 
thirty years in the place of a sister. 
Her knowledge was great, and her 



®abU ®<%lk* "9 



conversation pleasing. I now live in 
cheerless solitude.". This was written 
from Bolt Court, Nov. 10, 1783. 

MRS. WILLIAMS. 

•yOPHAM BEAUCLERK once said 
* to him, " Doctor, why do you keep 
that blind woman in your house?" 
"Why, sir," answered Johnson, "she 
was a friend of my poor wife, and was 
in the house with her when she died. 
And so, sir, as I could not find it in 
my heart to desire her to quit my 
house, poor thing ! she has remained in 
it ever since." 

♦ 

MRS. THRALE. 

t> OSWELL has preserved many lively 
*"* sallies of Johnson in conversation 
with the leading wits and beauties of the 
time. With Mrs. Thrale he had more 
tender relations, for he evidently came 
to regard the bright and lively widow 
with more than Platonic affection. We 



120 Qartov gfvljn&cm. 

gather this from his letters, and not 
merely from the disgust which he felt 
on her marrying the worthy Signor 
Piozzi, her singing-master. Her vanity 
having been sufficiently gratified by 
having the Colossus of literature 
attached to her for many years, she 
gradually became less assiduous in 
pleasing him. He soon saw that his 
presence at Streatham was no longer 
welcome, and he bade the place a last 
farewell, not without feelings of grati- 
tude, and the expression of pious 
wishes for the family. When he was 
actually told of the marriage with 
Piozzi, he was dumb with surprise 
for some moments ; at last recovering 
himself, he exclaimed with emotion, 
" Varium et mutabile semper fcemina." 

SECOND MARRIAGES. 

A/TADAME PIOZZI'S was certainly 
not one of those second mar- 
riages which Johnson thought of when 
he said, in reply to Boswell's remark 



©<*bU? ®t*lk* i2i 



that a widower marrying showed dis- 
regard of his first wife. " No, sir, not 
at all. On the contrary, were he not 
to marry again, it might be concluded 
that his first wife had given him a dis- 
gust to marriage ; but by taking a 
second wife he pays the highest com- 
pliment to the first, by showing that 
she made him so happy as a married 
man that he wishes to be so the second 
time." This argument, we suppose, 
would be stronger for a third or fourth 
marriage ! At least, it applies equally 
to both widowers and widows. 

«$» 

MRS. JOHNSON. 

JOHNSON'S affection for his own 
wife was of almost romantic inten- 
sity, in spite of her being old enough 
to have been his mother. He seemed 
to forget all externals of age and form, 
for his friends saw little to cause 
such marked attachment ; shown even 
to his latest life, in his affectionate 
6 



122 gJxxctov &0\jn&0n. 

recollections of his " Tetty, " and even 
his prayers for her, always with the 
proviso that prayers for the departed 
were lawful. On one occasion he 
owned that he had once almost sought 
a promise from Mrs. Johnson not to 
marry again, should she survive him ! 
As Boswell says, "he seems to have 
wholly overlooked the prior claim of 
the honest Birmingham trader, Mr. 
Porter, whose widow she was." 



SIGNOR PIOZZI. 

T} ETURNING to Mrs. Piozzi, it is 
^ only fair to add that she appears 
to have been happy with the Italian 
singer, of whom Anna Seward says, 
"Johnson did not tell me the truth 
when he asserted that Piozzi was an 
ugly dog, without particular skill in his 
profession. Mr. Piozzi is a handsome 
man, in middle life, with gentle, pleas- 
ing, and unaffected manners, and with 
very eminent skill in his profession. 



®t*UU ©itlk* 123 

Though he has not a powerful or fine- 
toned voice, he sings with transcendent 
grace and expression. Surely the finest 
sensibilities must vibrate through his 
frame, since they breath so sweetly 
through his song ! " 

«$» 

THE GAME OF DRAUGHTS. 

A T college Johnson was very fond of 
playing at draughts, a game which 
he said was sufficient to fix the attention 
without straining it. After beginning 
the struggle of life, he gave too little 
time to any such relaxations. When 
Mr. Payne, brother of the bookseller 
of that name, published a treatise on 
draughts, Johnson contributed a Pre- 
face, and a Dedication to Lord Roch- 
ford. In this he says, "Triflers may 
find or make any thing a trifle ; but 
since it is the great characteristic of a 
wise man to see events in their causes, 
to obviate consequences, and ascertain 
contingencies, your lordship will think 
nothing a trifle by which the mind is 



124 ^octctv fMjttaott* 

inured to caution, foresight, and cir- 
cumspection." 

TEA. 

CVERY one has heard of Johnson's 
vast appetite for tea. In his Reply 
to Jonas Hanway's "Essay on Tea, and 
its Pernicious Consequences," the Doc- 
tor describes himself as "a hardened 
and shameless tea-drinker, who has for 
many years diluted his meals with only 
the infusion of this fascinating plant ; 
whose kettle has scarcely time to cool ; 
who with tea amuses the evening, with 
tea solaces the midnight, and with tea 
welcomes the morning." 

TO BE CONTINUED. 

TV/TR. SWINTON, chaplain of the 
Oxford gaol, a learned but often 
thoughtless and absent man, preached 
the "condemnation sermon" one Sun- 
day on repentance, before some convicts 
who were to be executed next day. At 
the close he said he would continue 



3£abU ®alk* 125 

the subject next Lord's day. One of 
the company at a dinner when this was 
mentioned, by way of apology for Mr. 
Swinton, said he had probably preached 
the same sermon before the University. 
"Yes, sir," said Johnson, "but the 
University were not going to be hanged 
next morning." 



MRS. MACAULAY, THE REPUBLICAN 
HISTORIAN. 

JOHNSON had a great antipathy 
to Mrs. Macaulay, daughter of 
Alderman Sawbridge, and author of a 
Whig, or rather Republican, history 
of England under the Stuarts. The 
book is still worthy of reference, as it 
contains a very full account of the 
Long Parliament and of the Common- 
wealth men. One day at her house, 
which was a resort of literary persons, 
Johnson said, " 'Madam, I am now a 
convert to your way of thinking. I am 
convinced that all mankind are on an 
equal footing. To convince you that I 



126 Qcctov Q0\jn#0t\. 

am in earnest, there is your footman, a 
very sensible, civil, well-behaved fellow- 
citizen ; I desire that he may be allowed 
to sit down and dine at table with us.' 
I thus, sir, showed the absurdity of the 
levelling doctrine. She has never liked 
me since. Sir, your levellers wish to 
level down as far as themselves ; but 
they cannot bear levelling up to them- 
selves. 

PLAYERS. 

A LTHOUGH Johnson had great 
^^ regard for Garrick personally, he 
often spoke with contempt of his 
profession. Boswell said, " Surely, 
sir, we respect a great player as a man 
who can conceive lofty sentiments and 
can express them gracefully." yohn- 
son : "What, sir; a fellow who claps 
a hump upon his back, and a lump on 
his leg, and cries, ' I am Richard the 
Third'? Nay, sir, a ballad singer is 
a higher man, for he does two things, 
he repeats and he sings. There is 



©able (2£aUt* 127 

both recitation and music in his per- 
formance; the player only recites." 
Boswell argued that Garrick must have 
high excellence, as he had made 
,£100,000. Johnson: "Is getting 
;£ 1 00, 000 a proof of excellence? That 
has been done by a scoundrel commis- 
sary." All this was mere talk for 
arguing sake, for Johnson at other 
times spoke highly of Garrick's art. 
Who does not remember the famous 
words in the "Lives of the Poets," 
"His death eclipsed the gaiety of 
nations." When once questioned by 
Boswell as to the propriety of so strong 
a eulogy, he said, " I could not have 
said more or less. It is the truth, 
eclipsed not extinguished ; and his death 
did eclipse, it was like a storm." 
Boswell: " But why nations ? Did his 
gaiety extend farther than his own 
nation ? " Johnson : " Why, sir, some 
exaggeration must be allowed. Besides, 
nations may be said — if we allow the 
Scotch to be a nation — to have gaiety 



i28 Qoctov gMjn#<nt< 



— which they have not. You are an 
exception, though. Come, gentlemen, 
let us candidly admit that there is one 
Scotchman who is cheerful." 

Boswell also criticized the words 
about Garrick's death as having dimin- 
ished the stock of harmless pleasure. 
" Is not harmless pleasure," he said, 
"very tame?" Johnson replied, "Nay, 
sir, harmless pleasure is the highest 
praise. Pleasure is a word of dubious 
import; pleasure is, in general, dan- 
gerous, and pernicious to virtue ; to be 
able, therefore, to furnish pleasure that 
is harmless, pleasure pure and un- 
alloyed, is as great power as man can 
possess." This explanation Boswell 
thought ingenious but not satisfactory. 

♦ 

OSSIAN. 

HTHE authenticity of the poems of 
Ossian was frequently under dis- 
cussion, and the subject is wearisome. 
The truth about it is now admitted to 
be that Macpherson skilfully adopted 



©obi* ©alk* 129 



some of the floating traditions of the 
old Celtic bards and minstrels. John- 
son's strenuous assertions were directed 
mainly against the existence of manu- 
scripts, which Macpherson maintained 
to exist. " He and Dr. Blair, whom I 
consider as deceived, say that he 
copied the poem from old manuscripts. 
His copies, if he had them, and I 
believe him to have had none, are 
nothing. Where are the manuscripts ? 
They can be shown, if they exist, but 
they were never shown. De non 
existentibus et non apparentibus, says 
our law, eadem est ratio. No man 
has a claim to credit upon his own 
word, when better evidence, if he had 
it, may be easily produced. But what- 
ever he has he never offered to show." 






"Macpherson never in his life offered 
me a sight of any original or of any 
evidence of any kind ; but thought only 
of intimidating me by noise and threats, 
till my last answer— that I would not 
6* 



130 Q&ti&v Q&\)x\&&\x* 

be deterred from detecting what I 
thought a cheat by the menaces of a 
ruffian — put an end to the correspond- 
ence." 

* 

STUDY IN EARLY LIFE. 

T N my early years I read very hard. 
It is a sad reflection, but a true 
one, that I knew almost as much at 
eighteen as I do now. My judgment, 
to be sure, was not so good, but I 
had all the facts. I remember very 
well when I was at Oxford, an old 
gentleman said to me, "Young man, 
ply your book diligently now, and 
acquire a stock of knowledge ; for when 
years come upon you, you will find that 
poring upon books will be but an irk- 
some taste." 

JOHNSON'S ROUGHNESS OF SPEECH. 

COME one censuring Johnson's 

general rudeness in society, Burke 

replied, u It is well when a man comes 

to die, that he has nothing worse to 



&able ®alh* 131 

accuse himself of than some harshness 
in conversation." Goldsmith said of 
him, " He has nothing of the bear but 
the skin." 

♦ 

INFLUENCE OF TRADE ON 
CHARACTER. 

HPHERE are no qualities in trade 
that should entitle a man to supe- 
riority. It is quite true that we can 
suppose a merchant to be a man of an 
enlarged mind, such as Addison in the 
Spectator describes Sir Andrew Free- 
port to have been. We may suppose 
any factitious character; we may sup- 
pose a philosophical day-labourer, who 
is happy in reflecting that, by his labour, 
he contributes to the support of his 
fellow-creatures; but we find no such 
philosophical day-labourer. A mer- 
chant may, perhaps, be a man of an 
enlarged mind; but there is nothing 
in trade connected with an enlarged 
mind, 



132 ^cctov Qolyn&on. 

SEA LIFE. 

JOHNSON often spoke of the 
wretchedness of a sea-life. "A ship 
is worse than a gaol. There is in a 
gaol, better air, better company, better 
conveniences of every kind ; and a ship 
has the additional disadvantage of being 
in danger. When men come to like a 
sea-life, they are not fit to live on 
land." 

A HATTER IN THE BOROUGH. 

JOHNSON'S learning and talents 
kept him always in the upper 
ranks of society, but he never lost 
his sympathy with the lower classes, 
whose pains and pleasures he had once 
shared. When Mr. Thrale was candi- 
date for the Borough of Southwark, 
Johnson entered with great spirit into 
the canvassing, which was rather rough 
work in those times. A hatter, seeing 
the Doctor's beaver to be somewhat 
rusty, seized it with one hand, and 
clapping him on the back with the 



f&able ©alk* 133 

other, said, "Ah, Master Johnson, this 
is no time to be thinking about hats" 
"No, no, sir," said the Doctor good- 
humouredly, " hats are of no use now, 
as you say, except to throw up in the 
air and huzza with," accompanying his 
words with a boisterous hooray ! 

♦ 

DR. GOLDSMITH. 

^JO man was more foolish when he 
had not a pen in his hand, or more 
wise when he had." This reminds us 
of the epigrammatic jest about King 
James I., " that he never said a foolish 
thing and never did a wise one." 

4 

TALKATIVE LADIES. 

TN conversation with a very talkative 
lady, of whom he appeared to take 
little notice, " Why, Doctor," she said, 
" I believe you prefer the company of 
men to that of the ladies." " Madam," 
he replied, " I am very fond of the 
company of ladies ; I like their beauty, 



134 Qiictov |tajjtt#0tt* 

I like their delicacy, I like their viva- 
city, and I like their silence" 

OSBORNE THE BOOKSELLER. 

HHHE story has often been told of the 
Doctor knocking down Osborne in 
his shop with a folio. The truth was, 
as he told Boswell, " Sir, he was imper- 
tinent to me, and I beat him. But it 
was not in his shop ; it was at my own 
house." Mrs. Thrale also asked him 
to tell about this, and he said, " There 
is nothing to tell, dearest lady, but that 
he was insolent and I beat him, and 
that he was a blockhead and I told 
him of it. I have beat many a fellow, 
but the rest had the wit to hold their 
tongues." 

IRELAND. 

JOHNSON always expressed repug- 

nance to visit Ireland. " It is the 

last place where I should wish to 

travel," he said to Boswell, when urg- 



©able @£alk, 135 

ing him to make a tour there. Boswell : 
"Should you not like to see Dublin, 
sir?" Johnson: "No, sir; Dublin 
is only a worse capital." Boswell: 
" Is not the Giant's Causeway worth 
seeing?" Johnson: "Worth seeing? 
Yes, but not worth going to see." 
Perhaps the difficulty of getting to Ire- 
land in those days had something to do 
with this repugnance. Mr. Edgeworth 
was once detained for some weeks, by 
contrary winds preventing him crossing 
the Channel. 

PERSONAL REMARKS AND 
QUESTIONS. 

VT EVER speak of a man in his own 
presence. It is always indelicate 
and may be offensive. 

* * 
"Questioning is not the mode of 
conversation among gentlemen. It is 
assuming a superiority, and it is parti- 
cularly wrong to question a man con- 
cerning himself. There may be parts 



136 Qvctov Qotynxctn. 

of his life which he may not wish to 
have made known to other persons, or 
even brought to his own recollection." 



FRENCHMEN. 

"COR Frenchmen, and for foreigners 

generally, he had the contempt 

common in England, from ignorance 

and prejudice. When complimented 

for doing his Dictionary sooner and 

better than the forty Academicians 

did theirs, "Why, what would you 

expect, sir," said he, "from fellows 

who eat frogs ? " Lord Palmerston's 

remark about the Turks was as good, 

" What can you expect from fellows 

who go about all day in slippers ? " 

* 
* * 

An eminent Frenchman when shown 
through the British Museum was 
troublesome with many absurd in- 
quiries. Johnson heard of it, and said, 
" Now there, sir, is the difference be- 
tween an Englishman and a Frenchman. 



©able QZalk. 137 

A Frenchman must be always talking, 
whether he knows anything of the 
matter or not ; an Englishman is con- 
tent to say nothing, when he has 
nothing to say." 

* * 
Hearing a number of foreigners talk- 
ing loud at Slaughter's coffee-house 
about trifles, he said, " Does not this 
confirm old MeynelFs observation, 
* For anything I see, foreigners are 
fools!'" 

JOHNSON AS AN ATHLETE. 

TOHNSON was a man of great mus- 
cular power, and even when of 
abnormal size from his sedentary 
habits, he retained much of his early 
athletic vigour. In his last visit to 
Lichfield, he went to see a rail that 
he used to jump over when a boy, and 
was so fortunate as to find it " I 
gazed upon it," he told a friend, " for 
some time with rapture, for it brought 
to my mind all my juvenile sports and 



138 Q0ct0v gjLoljn#<m. 

pastimes, and at length I determined 
to try my skill and dexterity. I laid 
aside my hat and wig, pulled off my 
coat, and leapt over it twice." This 
was only three years before his death ! 
He sometimes rode Mr. Thrale's old 
hunter with great firmness, and though 
he would follow the hounds sometimes 
fifty miles on end, he would never own 
himself either tired or amused by the 
sport. He was much pleased, however, 
when Mr. Hamilton called out one 
day on the downs at Brighton, " Why, 
Johnson rides as well as the most 
illiterate fellow in England." 

Stories were current of his prodigi- 
ous feats of strength. Garrick told 
how at Lichfield an insolent fellow 
having planted himself where he had 
no right to be, at a public entertain- 
ment, and refusing to move, Johnson 
took him up, chair and all, and threw 
him into the pit. Two fierce dogs 
began to fight in a room, to the alarm 
of the company. Johnson took one 



f&able ®ttlk* 139 

by the back of the neck, and opening 
the window with his other hand, threw 
the dog into the street. A porter came 
into collision with him in Covent Gar- 
den, and was inclined to resent the 
supposed attack, but eyeing the Doc- 
tor's huge frame, he walked away. It 
was probably the rumour of his strength 
as well as determination, that cowed 
Foote when he was about to ridicule 
the Doctor on the stage. Johnson 
heard of it, and, before a friend of 
Foote, asked how much he must pay 
for a good oak cudgel. Being told, 
one shilling, he said he would get a 
two-shilling stick, to give the fellow 
a better beating. Foote had the pru- 
dence to withdraw the farce. 

FOOTE. 

JOHNSON disliked Foote, and had 

a low estimate of his character, 

but acknowledged his unrivalled wit 

and comic power. " The first time 



140 |[)ixct<rar gtotyntfittt* 

I was in company with Foote was at 
Fitzherbert's. Having no good opinion 
of the fellow, I was resolved not to 
be pleased; and it is very difficult to 
please a man against his will. I went 
on eating my dinner pretty sullenly, 
affecting not to mind him ; but the dog 
was so very comical, that I was obliged 
to lay down my knife and fork, and 
fairly laugh it out. No, sir, he was 
irresistible." 

JOHNSON'S AGILITY. 

WTHEN there was "no fool by" 
he rejoiced in romping and play- 
ing with the families of his intimate 
friends. He was great at " hop, step, 
and jump ; " and few could beat him 
in a short race. On one occasion he 
proposed a race with his old friend 
Payne, the bookseller, afterwards chief 
accountant of the Bank of England. 
Payne was very active, but a little man, 
and Johnson's strides made the contest 
doubtful. Whether he feared defeat, 



©txMe ©alk* 141 

or whether he did it in exuberance of 
fun, at about half the distance he 
caught Payne up in his arms, and 
placed him high in the arm of an ad- 
joining tree, and then continued run- 
ning as if he had met with a hard 
match. He then returned, and amidst 
much merriment released his friend 
from the not very pleasant position to 
which he had been exalted. 

TOLERATION. 

PVERY man has a right of liberty 
of conscience, and with that the 
magistrate cannot interfere. People 
confound liberty of thinking with liberty 
of talking, nay, with liberty of preach- 
ing. Every man has a physical right 
to think as he pleases, for it cannot 
be discovered how he thinks. He has 
not a moral right, for he ought to in- 
form himself, and think justly. But, 
sir, no member of a society has a right 
to teach any doctrine contrary to what 



142 Q&ct0v &0ljn&0n. 

the society holds to be true. The 
magistrate as representing society may 
be wrong in what he thinks ; but while 
he thinks himself right, he may and 
ought to enforce what he thinks." 



LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE AND 
LIBERTY OF TEACHING. 

TN company with Seward and Bos- 
well, Johnson, being asked if he 
would restrain private conversation as 
well as public teaching, said, " It is 
difficult to say when private conversa- 
tion begins and when it ends. If we 
three were to discuss even the great 
question concerning the existence of a 
Supreme Being by ourselves, we should 
not be restrained, for that would put an 
end to all improvement. But if we 
should discuss it in the presence of 
ten boarding-school girls, and as many 
boys, I think the magistrate would do 
well to put us in the stocks, to finish 
the debate there." 



©able ©alk* 143 

VALUING THRALE'S BREWERY. 

TOHNSON was one of Mr. Thrale's 
executors ; Lord Lucan records the 
following characteristic scene and 
speech. When the sale of the brewery 
was preparing, Johnson appeared, bus- 
tling about with an inkhorn and pen at 
his button-hole, like an exciseman ; and 
on being asked what he really con- 
ceived to be the value of the property, 
he replied, "We are not here to sell 
a parcel of boilers and vats, but the 
potentiality of growing rich beyond the 
dreams of avarice." 



* 



RIGHT USE OF MONEY. 

A MAN cannot make a bad use of 
money, so far as regards society, 
if he do not hoard it; for if he either 
spends it, or lends it out, society has 
the benefit. It is in general better to 
spend money than to give it away ; for 
industry is more promoted by spending 



144 poctor gtoljnsmt. 



money than by giving it away. A man 
who spends his money is sure he is 
doing some good with it ; he is not sure 
when he gives it away. A man who 
spends ten thousand a year will do 
more good than a man who spends two 
thousand and gives away eight. 



ACTION IN ORATORY. 

'T'HE saying of the ancient rhetori- 
cian that action was the first, 
second, and third element in oratory is 
a foolish saying. " Action," said John- 
son, " can have no effect upon reason- 
able minds. It may augment noise, 
but it can never enforce argument. If 
you speak to a dog, you use action; 
you hold up your hand thus, because 
he is a brute; and in proportion as 
men are removed from brutes, action 
will have the less influence upon them." 
Johnson is so far right, but the majority 
of any audience are not reasonable 
minds, swayed by argument only. 



&able t£alh» 145 

THE MEDITERRANEAN. 

"""THE grand object of travelling is to 
see the shores of the Mediter- 
ranean. On those shores were the 
four great empires of the world — the 
Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, the 
Roman. All our religion, almost all 
our law, almost all our arts, almost all 
that sets us above savages, has come 
to us from the shores of the Mediter- 
ranean." 

# 

BOOKS OF TRAVEL. 

"DOOKS of travel will be good in 
proportion to what a man has 
previously in his mind j his knowing 
what to observe; his power of con- 
trasting one mode of life with another. 
As the Spanish proverb says, ' He who 
would bring home the wealth of the 
Indies must carry the wealth of the 
Indies with him.' So it is in travel- 
ling : a man must carry knowledge 
with him, if he would bring home 
knowledge." 

7 



146 Qcfctav gfcilin&on. 

DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 

HTHE peculiar doctrine of Chris- 
tianity is that of an universal sacri- 
fice and perpetual propitiation. Other 
prophets only proclaimed the will of 
God and the threatenings of God. 
Christ satisfied His justice. " 

GENIUS. 

r "PRUE genius is a mind of large 
general powers accidentally de- 
termined to some particular direction. 

Those who are willing to attribute 
everything to genius independent of 
education are encouraged in this opin- 
ion by laziness or pride, being willing 
to forego the labour of accurate reading 
and tedious inquiry, and to satisfy 
themselves and others with illustrious 
examples. 

* * 

A man may write at any time if he 
will set himself doggedly to do it. 



f&abiz f&alk* 147 

NOT UNDERSTANDING AN 
ARGUMENT. 

JOHNSON had been arguing with an 
opponent who happened to say, 
"I don't understand you, sir." On 
which the Doctor observed, "Sir, I 
have found you an argument, but I 
am not obliged to find you an under- 
standing." 

♦ 

FOOTE AND GARRICK. 

TOHNSON told a witty satirical story 
of Foote. He had a small bust of 
Garrick placed upon his bureau. " You 
may be surprised," said he, "that I 
allow him to be so near my gold ; but 
you will observe he has no hands." 



GARRICK'S ALLEGED PARSIMONY. 

/^ARRICK would refuse a box to 
^~* a friend if he expected the house 
to be full, and showed parsimony in 
many little ways. But Johnson said 
that no one was more generous in 



148 Qoctov guM}n#0n* 

giving. l \ Yes, sir, I know that Garrick 
has given away more money than any 
man in England that I am acquainted 
with, and that not from ostentatious 
views. He was very poor when he 
began life; so when he came to have 
money, he was probably unskilful in 
giving away, and saved when he should 
not. But Garrick began to be liberal 
as soon as he could; and I am of 
opinion that the reputation of avarice 
which he has had, has been very lucky 
for him, and prevented his having many 
enemies. They have kept clamouring 
about his avarice, which has rescued 
him from much obloquy and envy." 

MARRYING AN HEIRESS. 

COME one remarking that a woman 
married for money usually proved 
very expensive. Johnson said, "De- 
pend upon it, sir, this is not true. A 
woman of fortune, being used to the 
handling of money, spends it judici- 



®aMc ®alh* U9 



ously ; but a woman who gets the com- 
mand of money for the first time upon 
her marriage, has such a gust in spend- 
ing it, that she throws it away with 
great profusion." 

«$» 

CHARITABLE SPIRIT GROWS WITH 
AGE. 

A S I know more of mankind I ex- 
^ pect less of them, and am ready 
now to call a man a good man upon 
easier terms than I was formerly. 



" I always was struck with this sen- 
tence in Thomas a Kempis, { Be not 
angry that you cannot make others as 
you wish them to be, since you cannot 
make yourself as you wish to be.' Si 
non potes te talem facere qualem vis, 
quomodo poteris alium ad tuum habere 
beneplacitum?" (De Itnit Christi, I. 
c. 1 6). 



7* 



150 Qcuctov gjtoljngxro* 

WOMEN'S CLAIMS OF RIGHTS. 

VV70MEN have all the liberty they 
should wish to have. We have 
all the labour and the danger, and the 
women all the advantage. We go to sea, 
we build houses, we do everything, in 
short, to pay our court to the women." 
Mrs. Knowles still objecting to men 
claiming superiority, the Doctor said, 
" It is plain, madam, one or other must 
have the superiority. As Shakespeare 
says, ' If two ride on a horse, one must 
ride behind.' " 

ECCENTRIC LOVE OF DISTINCTION. 

Ayr EETING a gentleman driving six 
small ponies, which many stopped 
to admire, Johnson said, "Why does 
nobody begin the fashion of driving six 
spavined horses, all spavined of the 
same leg? It would have a mighty 
pretty effect, and produce the distinc- 
tion of doing something worse than 
the common way." 



®abU Walk. 15 1 



AN UNLETTERED TALKER. 

A GENTLEMAN lamenting that he 
had lost all his Greek, the Doctor 
said, " I believe, sir, it happened at the 
same time that I lost all my large estate 
in Yorkshire." 

ABUSIVE CRITICISMS. 

HE had no concern about public 
abuse from critics. "Those 
fellows," he said, "are only advertising 
my books— it is surely better a man 
should be abused than forgotten." 

«$? 

EARLY TRAINING IN THRIFT. 

pvO not discourage your children 
U from hoarding, if they have a 
taste for it," he said to Mrs. Thrale; 
"whoever lays up his penny rather 
than part with it for a cake, at least is 
not the slave of gross appetite; and 
besides shows a preference, always to 
be esteemed, of the future for the pre- 
sent moment. Such a mind may make 



152 fptfjctcur |toljtt#<m* 

a good one; but the natural spend- 
thrift, who grasps his pleasure greedily 
and coarsely, and cares for nothing but 
immediate indulgence, is very little to 
be valued above a negro." 

& 

A CONSOLATION FOR A JEALOUS 
AUTHOR. 

T70 Goldsmith, who seemed vexed 
at the popularity of Dr. Beattie's 
"Essay on Truth," saying, "Here is 
such a stir about a fellow that has 
written one book, and I have written 
many," the Doctor observed, "There 
go two and forty sixpences to one 
guinea." 

DISLIKE OF FLATTERY. 

r "PO a lady praising him with too 
much zeal, which always offended 
him, he said, "Madam, consider what 
your flattery is worth before you choke 
me with it." 



i&able ®alk. 153 

Talking with Mrs. Thrale about 
Richardson's " Clarissa," he said, "You 
think that I like flattery, and so I do ; 
but a little too much always disgusts 
me. On the contrary, that fellow 
Richardson could not be contented to 
sail quietly down the stream of reputa- 
tion without longing to taste the froth 
from every stroke of the oar." 

REBUKE TO GARRULITY. 

/^\F a naturalist who had discoursed 
^" > ^ largely on the natural history of 
the mouse he said, "I wonder what the 
fellow would have said if he had ever 
the luck to see a lion ! " 

* * 
On another occasion he said, " I am 
sorry if I vexed the creature, for there 
is certainly no harm in a fellow's 
rattling a rattle-box, only don't let him 
think that he thunders." 



i54 ^^ct^v gujljranttt* 



BIOGRAPHY. 

'""FHERE has perhaps never passed a 
life of which a judicious and faith- 
ful narrative would not be useful. For 
not only every man has, in the mighty 
mass of the world, great numbers in 
the same condition with himself, to 
whom his mistakes and miscarriages, 
escapes and expedients, would be of 
immediate and apparent use ; but there 
is such an uniformity in the state of 
man, considered apart from adventitious 
circumstances, that there is scarce 
any possibility of good or ill but is 
common to human kind. 

«$» 

DULNESS AND PLAINNESS. 

"P\ULNESS or deformity are not in 
themselves to be blamed, but may 
be very justly reproached when they 
pretend to the honour of wit or the 
influence of beauty. 



f&able $£alk» 155 

CONVENTS. 

r ~PHOSE who cannot resist tempta- 
tion, and find they make them- 
selves worse by being in the world, 
without making it better, may retire. 
. . . But I think putting young people 
there who know nothing of life, nothing 
of retirement, is dangerous and wicked. 
If convents should be allowed at all, 
they should only be retreats for persons 
unable to serve the public, or who have 
served it. 

* * 

Johnson said once to the lady 
abbess of a convent, " Madam, you 
are here not for the love of virtue, but 
from the fear of vice," a remark which 
she said she would remember as long 
as she lived. 

4r 

FRIENDS OF EARLY AND LATER 
LIFE. 

HP HE friends which merit or useful- 

- L ness can procure us are not able 

to supply the place of old acquaint- 



156 Qoctov |*0jjn*Jttt* 

ances, with whom the days of youth 
may be retraced, and those images 
revived which gave the earliest delight. 

* * 

To lose an old friend is to be cut off 
from a great part of the little pleasure 
that this life allows. But such is the 
condition of our nature, that, as we 
live on, we must see those whom we 
love drop off successively, and find our 
circle of relations grow less and less, 
till we are almost unconnected with 
the world ; and then it must soon be 
our turn to drop into the grave. There 
is always this consolation, that we have 
one Friend who can never be lost but 
by our own fault, and every new ex- 
perience of the uncertainty of other 
comforts should determine us to fix 
our hearts where alone true joys are 
to be found. 

THE END. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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